Friday Follow-up Verses
Romans 6:1-4
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Pondering Point
Referencing our baptism in the Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul confidently asserts that anyone baptized into Jesus will experience the blessing of new life in Christ. That new life has already begun here on earth, but will be finalized when Jesus comes back and creates the promised new heaven and earth, united together as described in Revelation 21.
Prayer
While we are awaiting this, we can pray as Revelation 22 suggests:
Amen! Come Lord Jesus! (repeat it multiple times)
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
What's hard isn't following Jesus. What's hard is following myself, doing my life my way; therein lies the path to exhaustion. With Jesus there's still a yoke, a weight to life, but it's an easy yoke, and we never carry it alone.
But this easy yoke to carry a hard life is something we have to fight for. Ugh, you're thinking. I don't want to fight; I want a vacation. But the hard reality is the fight isn't optional. On this, evolutionary biology and Christian theology agree: life is a struggle. The question is simply: What are you fighting for? Survival of the fittest? Some perversion of the American dream? Or something better? Should you enlist in the war on hurry, remember what's at stake. You're not just fighting for a good life but for a good soul.
~ J.M. Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, p. 255
Further Contemplation During Holy Week
Hebrews 9:11-28
The Blood of Christ
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here,[a] he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining[b] eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,[c] so that we may serve the living God!
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
16 In the case of a will,[d] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.”[e] 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Footnotes:
[a] Hebrews 9:11 Some early manuscripts are to come
[b] Hebrews 9:12 Or blood, having obtained
[c] Hebrews 9:14 Or from useless rituals
[d] Hebrews 9:16 Same Greek word as covenant; also in verse 17
[e] Hebrews 9:20 Exodus 24:8