Man You Were Dead!

Can you imagine the readers of the Apostle Paul's letter, being read when it first arrived in Ephesus?  I can imagine the cocked heads or looks of relief .  He wrote they were once spiritually dead.  How could that be? Some of them might have been Doctors keeping people alive or even Jewish; Children of God!

By the time the reader completed  reading to the group, there might have been tears of joy.  Some men may have shouted "Amen" or Praise the Lord!"  They had once again heard the gospel from the quill of Paul.   They might have been experiencing persecution, false teaching, even temptation to return to religion. When they heard the phrase "Having done all, to stand..." they may have broke out in singing about "Victory IN JESUS."

Paul wrote: " And you He made alive, who were dead in sins..." and later... "even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit in the heavenly places.. In Christ"

Remember when he wrote this?  "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any should boast."
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Don't forget when ol' Lazarus died.  Jesus said to Martha; "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this."

Well do you believe?   We would hopefully answer like some of those at the Columbine school shooting did: "Yes I believe."  How then shall I live?  We hear later about some of those at Columbine had died to this world long before that day.  How's that?

"Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord". -Romans chapter 6:11.

Response time;

Would you pray or begin to talk to God this very minute.