Dead to Sin, Alive to God

“Radio personality Paul Harvey tells the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin. ‘First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood. Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night.

‘So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more--until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!’”  (Chris T. Zwingelberg)

A life is consumed by sin before it is captured by the salvation offered through Jesus Christ.  But once a life is seized by the grace and mercy of God it becomes dead to sin and alive to God.  The sin no longer controls or dictates that life.  To use the example from above, the life saved by Christ is no longer consumed by the taste and smell of the blood on the knife. 

Baptism is the perfect representation of this change from death to life.  Join us this week at ElmCreek Community Church as we celebrate together the transforming power of Jesus Christ in the lives of others and witness their obedience to Jesus’ call to be baptized.  For they are now “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).