Good News, More Good News & Even More Good News

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:8-11

The words quoted above are good news, more good news and even more good news. When Paul implores us, “count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ,” he gives us in a few words amazingly important good news. 

And so you rightly ask, what do these words mean, why are they good news, and if they are such good news how do what they say? 

What do these words mean?

To “count yourself” means essentially to look in the mirror and see the amazing reality so often missed. To count yourself means to consider, think, regard, and recon yourself. It means to rethink the way you think about yourself; to reconcile yourself to a new reality of you. Similar to those posters where if one looks at them long enough they see a different reality emerge, there is a new you that is different from what you might first think when you look in the mirror. And it is that new you is the more real, more free, more real you. That is good news.

Why are these words good news?

As followers of Jesus the “plan” is not that once you get your life straightened out, you will be good enough (holy enough, spiritual enough, acceptable enough) for God. No, as soon as you decide to follow him, to enter into His story, God sees you as all those things and more. The “plan” is that for you to step into that new reality, that you appropriate that reality into your life, that you count yourself dead to sin but alive to God, so that you can fully live as the person you already are. That more good news. 

How do we do that? 

The final three words of the verse tell us the answer, “in Christ Jesus.” So often we correctly believe that we are saved by grace and not by our works but then incorrectly believe that our sanctification is all on us. It is not. It is his power and his grace that both convinces us of the beauty that is our new self and that empowers us to live as that person. As we seek Jesus and find him in prayer, Bible, service, fasting, nature and the like, they both move us toward him and are done with him alongside us. That is even more good news. 

How are you personally effected by these pieces of good news? Your you "counting" them to yourself? What would it look like for you to do so? 

Peace, hope and love

Doug