Email from Abiding Place Daily Bread – April 23, 2025 (The Fourth Day – Genesis 1:14-19) Ephesians 2:4-6 – But God Who is rich in mercy through His abundant love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved – and has raised us up together, and has made us sit together in the Heavens in Christ Jesus. We Died With Jesus That We Might Live By His Life When we embrace His life and the identity He gave to us, we accept that Jesus was more than our substitute or representative. Rather, we died with Him so that we might also live in Him! Through the miracle of salvation, we received a brand new life, and all the former things were put to death by His crucifixion – for we were “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20; Titus 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:17,21). We are buried with him by baptism into His death, and our entire existence is now in Him (Romans 6:4). He is all our righteousness, He is all our holiness, and in Him, we have acceptance and are dearly loved by the Father (1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 1:6; John 14:23, 16:27). Now, we know that if one died for all, then all died – and Jesus died for all, so we would no longer live for ourselves, or unto ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 2 Timothy 2:11). Through this amazing love and grace of God, we who were dead are alive together with Jesus. All of our relations with God the Father and the world around us are affected by this amazing life of Christ we now possess. No longer by the knowledge and consciousness of the self do we live, but by the acceptance of a new life and identity in Christ Jesus. He is in us, and we are in Him – and God demands that we dwell here in Him (John 15:1-6, 17:21-23; Colossians 1:27). In this glorious salvation, we set aside the self. We deny it, and accept a Heavenly call to live by the One Who died, rose again, and now dwells within us (Mark 8:34). We must lay aside the identity of the ‘self’, the ‘I’, and the ‘me’ – and instead, see Jesus! In His life, and through His life, we receive all that God has freely given. God’s grace has produced for us what we could never supply for ourselves – the life of Christ! All we must do is accept what He has done for us and surrender ourselves to this glorious relationship. This is not a vicarious relationship, but the acceptance of a new identity in which we choose to come and dwell in Him and find all our life and purpose in Christ. Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 4/23/2025
