"Anguish and Praise"

"In the beginning God..." At first reading of the Bible, these first four words should be the catalyst that make a heart believe and take notice of God's unending power and awesomeness; that is if you believe that it is so. The Twenty-Second Psalm is a song that also requires this same measure of belief, and is set to the melody of "New Life" (paraphrased). In order for New Life to take place something must happen first, and that something is called "DEATH". Reading Romans 6, you will discover that death is part of the process for new life to begin; we must "Reckon the old man dead in Christ", and we must live a new life that we have in Christ with that old man dead and buried with Christ. Romans 6:5 & 6 says, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Many people like to make New Years Resolutions, and make vows of change; leaving the old in the past, and starting the New Year out fresh without something that they had just one day prior. This may be well and good, but to really truly change your life, you must become a New Creation in Christ! Only then will all things become new! But in order for that to happen, there must first be a death that takes place; that person of a sin nature must be nailed to that cross with Christ. Yes, I know, some of you are wondering how the heck that is meant to happen, since His death occurred over two thousand years ago; but nonetheless, that death of the old sinful man must take place! I am under the belief that before you can truly repent of your sins, you must first have remorse for those sins; in other words, there must first be an anguish in your heart because of your sin. It is this anguish that takes place in our hearts that truly makes us sorrowful for having trespassed against our God. Once we have anguish in our hearts, then we can take that broken and sorrowful man and place him on that cross with Christ; letting the anguish that Christ suffered for our sinful man be also the anguish that we feel in our hearts for those sins that He died for. This is our way of nailing that old man on that cross with Christ; because without that anguish and death of the old man, the sin that is turned from does not have much value or cost; there must be anguish involved on our part! After that death of the old man, there is a resurrection that takes place of the New Man in Christ; the old man has been crucified in Christ, and all things have become NEW... "For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:7)