Do Over: Experience New Life in Christ

We have finished the first half of the new teaching series in Bible Studies for Life.  The past 6-7 weeks have been real exciting. The general topic was presented as DO OVER! Experience new life in Christ.  Here we were introduced to the book of Romans, following along with Paul's opening premise, we are in a situation that we can not solve on our own, that problem is our sin status. Week one we discussed how and why we got there (Romans 1:16-17, 2:5-11, 3:9-12).  And that no one is exempt from that fact (Rom 3:9-12). As we moved along we come face to face with the fact that righteousness (Christ's righteousness) is a gift something, we could not give to ourselves (Rom 3:21-28).
Our next encounter with experiencing new life in Christ was learning what true love is...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). And this is a love that we can experience only in Him who died for us.
When the question was asked, "Who are you?",  there were various answers all of them valid responses.  After reading Romans 6:8-18 the question was posed again and the answers came back the same, ...slaves of righteousness (vs 18) we realized that our identity had change and we are citizens of a "new nation".
Now realizing that we are new citizens immediately there began a conflict the old self vs the new self, the flesh vs the spirit.  Scripture directs us to this reality... For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (8:2). 

 Sin controlled us because we were slaves to sin

We are no longer controlled by our sinful nature.We are not alone in this battle!!
We concluded that this new life can't be lived apart from Christ, to live apart from Christ is to live in the flesh.  So why would you go back to living in the flesh when you have been freed from the flesh to live in and by the spirit of Christ?
As we finished the first section we wanted to continue the journey through Romans. This past week we read Romans 9:1-33, God's Sovereign Choice.  Now was a lively discussion which I will post about next week. 

So each week we will walk through one or two chapters until we conclude the book.  That should take us to the end of February where we will pick up the Bible in Life series again and begin the second six week series, Honest to God: Real Questions People Ask.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them in the comment section just below this article.

Looking forward to seeing you and serving you in Christ!

Gregory Davis
gdavis@parkhillschurch.org
Twitter: @dragoncoach1
FaceBook: Gregory Davis
915-581-5307 Home (leave a message and I will call you back)