Yes, our dead flesh has sin in it all the time. It’s not free from sin and then sinful and then free from sin and then sinful – back and forth endlessly. It’s full of sin all the time; but it is DEAD. YOU however, are alive IN Christ. YOU have been freed from that body of sin by faith and one day soon you will have a completely NEW body that is also sinless – a gift from God.

Like ‘bookends’ to His earthly ministry, Jesus’ declarations to His disciples in Mat 5 and Mark 16 initiated and punctuated His message to (and mission for) the Church. In this day in which western Christianity is often being confused with economic, political and entertainment/popular values, we would do well to study and understand again what He said in them.

Doesn’t sound very uplifting, does it? It’s a list of spiritual failures and there is a stern warning at the end. This is what I think is important for us to understand. You see, many commentators have treated this prophecy/prediction as speaking of the degenerating of the entire human race but I don’t think that is the point.

You see, we are all broken. We are born broken – we are born in sin and born to die.

He’s telling us to be like Him. Unfortunately, even as believers we often still don’t ‘get’ Him – we get hung up on the power, the miracles, the radiant glory and we forget the most excellent things – the love, the mercy, the graciousness, that is the ‘Who attributes’ of His character as opposed to the ‘What’ attributes.

In fact, all the saints before us have had this attitude. The scripture says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a heavenly home.” (Heb 11:13,14)

And there’s the key; did you catch it? They saw the promises afar off and were thus assured. Friend, what are you looking forward to? A heavenly home? Like the faithful who have preceded us, can you see it? The promises are for pilgrims. Uttered by our Shepherd, they draw us on through the storms and trials, leading us home - back into the presence of God.

Comfort? What does comfort look like in times like these? For it’s at the bottom of these deep canyons of anguish that we’re vulnerable to feel abandoned by God as well.

And with this insemination came conception and gestation – something spiritual and eternal. You see, the picture of God’s plan continues for just as the human gestation period is 40 weeks, broken up into three periods, three trimesters, so the line of descendants from Abraham to Christ as recorded by Matthew (that is, the Messianic line) is 40 generations broken up into three equal parts. (See Matthew 1)

Friends, growing in God is not a matter of how much you can add to yourself. Contrary to popular theology, it’s not even a matter of how big your ministry is. It all comes down to self-diminishing. That is, who is going to live in you and through you – you or Jesus? Is Christ increasing in you or are you just learning about God? Now, the Lord offers no condemnation – only hearty encouragement for the end result for all believers is Christ-likeness!

The vast majority of what the people understood relative to pleasing Jehovah was ‘do-oriented’. The greatest misunderstanding of the people, having been schooled by the law of Moses, was that heaven was reserved for those who lived righteously meaning they did the ‘right things’, made the ‘right moves’.

Enter Jesus. And…

“…they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."” John 6:28,29

A new day had dawned and with it came a new message.