Is it "To Life" or "From Life"?

Good Morning Metro, I hope your Easter weekend was a time of being built up in your most holy faith. As I shared Sunday morning, Colossians 3:5-17 isn't a standard faire Easter sermon. Yet it powerfully and practically portrays what resurrection life looks like for the believer. But it is a passage that we need to exercise great care with. Remember, Colossians 3:5-17, with all of its ethical injunctions (because lets not forget that grace not only saves but grace is changing us!), flows from life and not to life. Sam Storms was so helpful to me in considering this. He says in his devotional, "The Hope of Glory" on page 249, "Holiness is portrayed as the fruit of acceptance with God, not the root." Yes! The ethical injunctions of Colossians 3:5-17 express life; they do not earn life! Jesus' perfect life, accepted death as payment of our sins, and his glorious resurrection…this is what has brought us life! And now we get to live life being continually clothed in Him! So, if the Holy Spirit whispers to you this week, "That (anger, malice, impatience…whatever!) doesn't fit you", remember, it is because you have died to your old self and have been raised again to new life in Christ! So, may your newness and mine be on display this week, dear friends. Take hold of the grace of God this week to walk in Him!

Aron