The Greatest LoveПримерок

I'm Alive Even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. -Ephesians 2:5 Laura Brooks, a fifty-two-year-old mother of two, didn’t know it but she was one of 14,000 people in 2011 whose name was incorrectly entered into the government database as dead. She wondered what was wrong when she stopped receiving disability checks, and her loan payments and rent checks bounced. She went to the bank to clear up the issue, but the representative told her that her accounts had been closed because she was dead! Obviously, they were mistaken. The apostle Paul was not mistaken when he said that the Ephesian believers were at one point dead—spiritually dead. They were dead in the sense that they were separated from God, enslaved to sin (Ephesians 2:5), and condemned under the wrath of God. What a state of hopelessness! Yet God in His goodness took action to reverse this condition for them and for us. The living God “who brings the dead back to life” (Romans 4:17) poured out His rich mercy and great love by sending His Son Jesus to this earth. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we’re made alive (Ephesians 2:4–5). When we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we go from death to life. Now we live to rejoice in His goodness and love!  -Marvin Williams How does your new life in Christ show that your old self has died? Why does this encourage you to rejoice and shout praises to God? Heavenly Father, thank You that I’ve been made alive through the sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus!