Romans 6:1 Don't go back in the water!

Imagine a sign on a beach saying ‘Do not Swim, Shark-infested Waters!’ but you go swimming anyway. Whilst you are enjoying yourself in the water you notice a shark fin nearby. As the fin moves closer you catch a glimpse of the shark with its teeth on show ready to attack you as you paddle helplessly. All of a sudden, a man observing from the shore runs into the water and swims into the path of the shark. The man is violently attacked instead of you and you are saved. Would you go go back in the water the next day? Of course you wouldn’t. You owe this man your life for saving you in those shark-infested waters. It would be an insult to the man and the sacrifice he made to you if you were to go back and swim in the same spot.

So why as Christians do we continue to go back in the water? There may be times when we fall in and have to get ourselves back out, but we should never willfully dive into the water as many Christians are doing.

John 15 describes Christ as the vine and Christians as the branches. The only purpose a branch has is to bear fruit for the vine. The condition of each branch bears testimony to the strength and glory of the vine itself. It has no interest in itself, yet churches today are filled with Christians who are self-involved gossips who find themselves most at home amongst worldly things. The branches are weak and feeble. God’s glory is little shown in their everyday life. It is of no wonder that people see little relevance in the church today or in a need to be saved by the Lord; those who claim to have been saved appear to be no better off than they. Although they have been saved from the ‘shadow of the valley of death’ they still choose to reside there. 

The biggest blow being dealt to the Christian faith right now is Christian’s themselves.

Blame can lie with the church who are afraid to offend people by preaching the true gospel. A church who advertises a relationship with Christ as the best thing since sliced bread results in Christians kicking their faith into touch when it doesn’t yield good results for them or when the going gets tough (which is an inevitable part of life that no one can escape). But ultimately, it is the individual who bears the responsibility for their actions.

Christianity is promoted as a no-works based faith. This is true. However this does not mean that there is nothing to do in our faith. The things of this world are in complete contrast to God. If we are saved and desire to follow the Lord then it is natural that we do not associate ourselves with those things. It is not that we have to ‘do works’, but rather, just as the swimmer who has been saved from the shark, out of gratitude to the rescuer he will have no desire to swim again in those waters. In the same way if we are saved we will naturally desire to stay away from those things that are against what God stands for and seek to do righteousness.

We must understand that in the eyes of God, everything in the world is considered to be shark-infested waters. For everything in this world is fading away. The only thing that is eternal and can save us is by putting our trust in the Lord Himself. We must understand that our God is a holy God with standards higher than we know. We may see nothing wrong with some of the things that we do, but we have a God who sees even lying as an abomination.

Mark 8:34 shows us how extreme our call to God is as a Christian, “When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

The root word for ‘deny yourself’ is ‘aparneomai’. As Christians we have a cost to pay, that cost is our own selves. If we confess Christ as our Saviour we cannot then continue to live with our own interests at heart and live to please ourselves. There are sacrifices to be made. Nothing in this world is free. We cannot continue to treat grace as if it is a common thing. If you do this you run the danger of being ‘luke warm’. Revelation 3:16 “ So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

It is easy to confess Christ, but does your life match up with your words? If you ever wish to know the power of God in your life, deny yourself. For ‘when you are weak, then you are strong’ (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Look how serious Paul considers the Christian faith to be:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

The reason our church and our personal lives are in such a mess today is because we are not treating our faith seriously. The Lord God is a strict God.

Read your Bible and see what God asks of you and why He requires this. It is important to consider why. If I tell you to take a tablet a day, you may do it without much enthusiasm and soon forget, but if you are told that by taking that tablet each day you will improve your health and stop the onset of a disease, you will make sure taking that tablet is the first thing you do every day without fail. The commands of God are not there just for fun, there is a reason behind everything the Bible states. Seek out what that reasoning is.

Romans 6:12-14

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.

-BACChristian