Key 6: You must die to live!
Don’t be astonished, Jesus said it basically like this:
“YOU MUST DIE WITH ME… BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO BE BORN AGAIN INTO ME!” (John 3:3-8)
Wha…..?!?!?! This isn’t a horror movie… so don’t be scared about it. And don’t be mad about it. Jesus said it. It’s the best news ever!
You’re going back to the garden before the fall. Adam and Eve had only one rule there—about a tree (remember?). That old tree was the cause of death of everything and everyone.
The tree got Adam and Eve (and all future humans) kicked out of the garden permanently... until Jesus reopened it again for everyone. You want to get back into the garden. The garden has everything: peaceful, joyful, blissful time with your Perfect Good Loving Patient Generous Abba, Father GOD (and His amazing creation) where there is no more death.
He asks you to accomplish only one goal (one garden rule) to get you back into the garden… and to let you stay in the garden. What’s the goal? You have to die… totally completely dead… game over… with no new lives... no do-overs.
Sounds painful but nope; it doesn’t involve guns or poison or viruses. No bloodshed needed at all (from you). You just need to believe God wants this gift for you.
Adam/Eve’s nasty devil-DNA is alive in you until you do this. But if you let the nasty old sinner in you die, by believing, then you can be born of GOD. How can this be? It’s all about a tree (again). Adam ate from the tree… and we died. Jesus died on a tree… and we live.
So the first step to allow the nasty you to die is believe Jesus died on that tree. But why would He do that…?! Jesus (and Our Good Father) allowed this to be done to Him because God loves your original created value so much.
Believe it… and it becomes real for you. It’s that easy. Let your old Adam’s seed (the sinner), die. Die with Jesus... on Jesus’ tree. Let your dead body be buried with Jesus. But how…???
Your Good Father makes it easy: just go under the water and let it die. Before you believed and were baptized (or before you were baptized and then believed),
“You were ONCE estranged (from His image with the devil’s seed) and hostile in mind (thinking like a fallen human), doing evil…
But God has NOW reconciled you—in Jesus’ fleshly body—through DEATH…
And now Jesus shows you to the Father… HOLY, BLAMELESS, IRREPROACHABLE...
by always believing in this GOOD NEWS that you heard. (Colossians 1:21-23)
Just like He created you in the beginning before the fall of sin! And you’ll never have to leave His peaceful, blissful, perfect garden again.
You’ll be bold and confident in His Presence, especially when He returns to the earth in Power and Glory and Might (when everyone else is “fainting from fear”). (Luke 21:26)