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Most people will have some sort of funeral commemorating their life. This usually comes at the end of a life, but for a follower of Christ, our funeral usually occurs much earlier. My funeral took place at the age of 13. That is the day I asked Jesus into my life and that old self was laid to rest. But my life did not end there. No, instead that is when my life truly began.

The truth is that every Christian life must begin with a death. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” This is a powerful statement. Paul had been writing about how a person cannot be justified by birthright as a Jew, nor can we be made right with God by our works. The only way we will ever be forgiven and be in a relationship with the Lord is through the sacrifice of Jesus and accepting the free gift of grace and mercy.

Paul then makes the statement we just read in Galatians 2:20 that in receiving salvation our old sinful self is put to death and in place is a new creation. Let me be very clear that this is not something that we as humans can accomplish, but this is the result of being born again. Now I say that because if we could put that sinful self to death ourselves, we would not need a Savior. The other side of that coin is that the old self will want to rise and come back to life in us. It is then we must stay in the word, stay on our knees, surrender daily to Jesus, and pray that our old self stays dead.

We understand that salvation is free, but a funeral must occur. Living for Jesus is continuing to stay dead and not allowing the fleshly wants and desires to rise and steal from us the joy of our salvation. The cool thing is that if we have that old self put to death and allow for a funeral to occur now, we will never really have a funeral when these bodies give out because we shall never die.

There is no greater news in the history of this world than this.