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The above verse is from this week’s Old Testament reading. The text goes on to show just how unrepentant man is. But the Christian, filled with the Holy Spirit, is able to repent of evil when it befalls him. The Spirit empowers us with the ability to return to Jesus when we sin. In fact, we sin daily, and each time we return to the Lord in what turns out to be a mini-resurrection. That’s what repentance is, the living out of our baptismal resurrection in Christ. We fall into death when we sin but in repentance we rise again to new life in Christ. Should the Lord delay his return, one day you will fall into death for the last time, and because you have been connected to Christ in a death like His, you will be resurrected in a resurrection like His, never to die again!

Romans 6:3-11

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.

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