As a believer, I am promised a new life when I accept Christ’s sacrifice (his death) as the propitiation (satisfactory compensation) for my sin. Although the sacrifice is enough, my ability to embrace the truth of it in daily life is wanting.
Romans 6:3, 5
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? . . . If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
I firmly believe the faith walk is a process. And although our beloved Messiah did everything necessary to repair the separation between God and us, I am still learning how to walk the new path (the Way). I struggle with the paradox: death = life. I tend to hold onto what is familiar instead of letting those parts of me die.
I understand in my head that I must be more like the seed that dies before the plant will grow. Instead, I keep trying to be the best seed I can be. I’m missing out on the real transformation.
But God is patient. My old nature, my old self, is in various partitions and states of renewal. Gradually, sections do die. And with each small death, new life finds root. This is sanctification, my rite of passage from death to life.
Meditations from Zion 
[…] from “life to death.” Death is the dark time of our souls. But there are also “small deaths” along the way. The small deaths are still part of the sanctification of our souls, our […]