A Year with Jesus: 'Dead to the World'

What Jesus Might Say

Dear Disciple,

Don't fall in love with what cannot ultimately satisfy or eternally sustain you. Many around you chase after things that do not last and cannot supply them with genuine satisfaction. The world and the things of the world are passing away. They are in the process of decay. That doesn't mean that the physical world is inherently evil. However, the allure to focus on the stuff of your world rather than focusing on Me is strong.

Your trust in Me and your being joined to Me through faith and baptism mean that you have died to the world. You are now alive with Me. Your life and your future are tied to Me (Colossians 3:1-4). My indwelling presence within you through the Holy Spirit will sustain you and transform you (2 Corinthians 3:18). My life is alive in you, and this means that you "will never cease to be."

You trusted in My death to ransom you from sin. You believed in the power of My resurrection to give you new life. This life, empowered by the Holy Spirit, does not end with your physical death. No one can take this life from you. My resurrection from the dead is not just a historical fact that happened on a specific day nearly two thousand years ago. My resurrection also happens again, each day, as you offer yourself to Me.

Verses Jesus Might Suggest

As you read these verses from My apostles John and Paul, notice the emphasis on being dead to the world that is passing away and alive to Me and through My power at work within you.

Don't fall in love with this corrupt world or worship the things it can offer. Those who love its corrupt ways don't have the Father's love living within them. All the things the world can offer to you - the allure of pleasure, the passion to have things, and the pompous sense of superiority - do not come from the Father. These are the rotten fruits of this world. This corrupt world is already wasting away, as are its selfish desires. But the person really doing God's will - that person will never cease to be.
(1 John 2:15-17)

May I never put anything above the cross of our Lord Jesus the Anointed. Through Him, the world has been crucified to me and I to this world.
(Galatians 6:14)

I have been crucified with the Anointed One - I am no longer alive - but the Anointed is living in me; and whatever life I have left in this failing body I live by the faithfulness of God's Son, the One Who loves me and gave His body on the cross for me.
(Galatians 2:20)

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, Who raised Christ from the dead.
(Colossians 2:12 NLT)

Our Response in Prayer

Father, may I never boast in what I can do, but only in what You have done, in what You are doing, and in what You will do in Me. I ask this in the name of Jesus, Who was and Who is and Who is to come, the great I AM. Amen.