To catch one up on my train of thinking for this blog, I happened to be impacted by some crazy thought when I heard about The Walking Dead TV show coming on a few weeks ago. The first train of thought with The Walking Dead is of people in our world and lives who feel dead inside or "zombie-like" due to oppresive and depressed feelings.
Hmmm, what would Peter Griffin do? 🙂
The second is that many others in this world, including myself, consider ourselves dead. Yes, dead. The other key word of this death is to SIN. In the Torah (1st 5 books of the Bible explaining a lot of the Law) it clearly teaches/enlightens us to what is considered a SIN from God. However, when Jesus came along and fulfilled all those prophecies, He made a way for us humans to be dead to these things through Him, and "wrote the law on our hearts". Jesus Christ beat Death…with Death! How B.A. is that?
We've heard the phrase "Dead to SIn, but Alive in Christ" a decent amount in our modern day of church and bible studying. Well, it is a title of a popular chapter in a popular book in the bible too (Romans 6:1-14). I challenge you to read it and question what it means and applies to each of us. This is certainly a crucual part for us "Christians" to always remember. It's a state of mind and heart.
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."
My train of thinking for the idea of The Walking Dead, was that we're walking on this Earth and Dead…of our "wrong-doings". They are dead to us. They are no longer our "master". Death to the desires of our flesh. Death to things once held against us by the enemy. Jesus took care of all of it! We just have to choose to accept what He's done and walk in KNOWING. When things are dead to us, they don't affect us anymore…right?
Yet, we can all agree and ask "why do I still feel "trapped" to those selfish desires at times? Whoever says being a follower of Jesus is easy is a lier. It takes our part and role to expose those things in our lives into the "light" we want to die to. All of this done for us by Him to not be under Law, but by Grace. Yes, it's a continuos and daily challenge of acknowledging things within ourselves we just know deep down in our gut aren't "good" or "benefit" us, calling them out into the light, and dying to them to have life. So bizarre.
Well, there you have it. Two different ways of analyzing the term The Walking Dead in our daily lives. I hope this challenges you to think about titles of TV shows and movies even more!
Yes, this shirt is on sale on amazon. Ha!
