It struck my recently how so many people are fascinated by death. The horror movies, the vampire stories, the zombie comedies. They all have a bizarre attraction to people. And then I realized a simple truth; people relate to that. Most people don't realize it but they relate to these creatures that are dead. Think about it for a minute. In most of the stories there is some kind of disease or curse that mutates people into the living dead. They move, they breath, they eat and drink, they have desires and drives, but they have no soul.
And the stark reality is that this is the natural human state. We naturally are dead. We live and walk, eat and sleep, even interact socially, but we have no life. We act on our basest desires, we feast on sin. We stumble and destroy. We try to devour that glimpse of real life.
But there is a cure. There are people who are not controlled by the disease. The vaccine has been handed out and the ones who have received it are also able to pass it on. Those who were once hostile to life now are givers of life. But the cure involves dying. The living dead must be finally killed and reborn to be alive. The soulless, shuffling zombies can become living, conquering humans. And on the outside there isn't always that much of a visible difference. But the soul is alive.
So the challenge is this: Live as though you are alive. If we have been set free from the plague of sin than we ought to live as though we are free, no longer walking in the same way of life as the dead world. Because how can we who are dead to (death) live in it any more? By grace we have been vaccinated through faith. So those who are dead to sin cannot live any longer in it.
Ephesians 2:1-5ish "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—"
Romans 6:2ish-12 How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
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