Mike Wiist

Listen to a lesson on staying dead by clicking HERE

You know you're in a horror movie if you have to ask this! "Why won't you just stay dead?!" Scary movies tend to be about people or things who should be dead, and yet, are up walking around, tormenting the living. The plot of this kind of movie is for the hero to kill the thing that is already suppose to be dead. Romans 6:1-4 reminds us that when we were baptized with Christ we were baptized into his death and DIED to self & sin. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. NIV I realized 17 years ago that I was not going to be able to save myself. I realized that sin separated me from God and I opted to die in order to be unified with God. God saved me through his grace. Sometimes as Christians we forget that we are dead and we wander around trying to ressurect the old man. We are not told that by killing the old man, we will never struggle with him again. And there may be times when we find ourselves shouting "WHY won't YOU stay Dead?!!!!" I pray that it always scares me when that old man begins to crawl out of the grave. It should scare me, not because grace has lost its power to save, but because it is a reminder that I am drawing away from the new life I've committed to God. "Fight the good fight. . . ." and keep putting that dead man back in the grave, living your life, instead, to God.