Grace Calls Out To Us To Choose Life

“We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.”

Michel De Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection

“Live fast, die young, leave a good–looking corpse.” James Dean

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” C. S. Lewis

“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Paul the apostle

Paul sets before every follower of Christ two consequential choices. One proclivity leads to spiritual death and the other to an abundance of life eternal. We are in a battle of flesh and Spirit. We must choose the better and surrender.  

The apostle is candid. He tells us that we are either daily surrendering to our fallenness, feeding and growing sinful idolatrous desires within ourselves and thereby becoming more selfish and loveless or we are surrendering to the grace of the cross and by the Spirit putting to further death that which is still sinful within us, feeding and nurturing the new life within us and thereby growing in love, taking on daily Christlikeness.

Paul’s presentation of two different dispositions and patterns of life could not be starker. Paul tells us that this choice between life and death is our daily companion. Every possible thought and action leads us to a fork in the road. He admonishes us that out of the ocean of Calvary’s grace and from a heart that longs to please God to make the choice of life our manner of life.