Forgetting the Gospel?

"Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to Yahweh  your Elohim, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."

~Joel 2:13

I've been thinking about the term "dying daily" recently (1 Cor. 15:31).  And I think it means something subtly different than what many Christians assume.

"But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation."              ~Colossians 1:22

The truth in Messiah is that we've already died, once and for all.  You died with Christ -- thus, there is no more dying to do! The Holy Spirit already cleansed you, sanctified you, and gave you the seal of Resurrection life (Ephesians 1:13).  What Jesus did was enough.  So I don't think Paul was talking about constantly spiritually 'killing' oneself, again and again and again.  He wasn't saying that we must obsessively purge ourselves from each and every sin.  No...Dying daily is about remembrance.

Martin Luther (supposedly?) said, "we need to hear the gospel everyday because we forget it everyday".  And it's true!  The good news is almost too good to be true. It's almost unbelievable, and it would be, without the power of the Spirit drawing us in (John 6:44).  Even after belief, our minds must be continually renewed (Romans 12:2).  The Gospel can be hard to get a grasp on!

If you're stressed out, if you are anxious, it's ultimately because you've had a short term crisis in faith. Perfect peace have they that love Yah's law (Psalm 119:165).  That's the law of love, which you are currently living under (Romans 8:2)! If you are not being in peace, it's because of unbelief.

All it takes to get your peace back is to rest and remember.  It's critical that we are always remembering the gospel.  In the Old Testament, Yahweh commanded Joshua and fellow Israelites to set up memorial stones after having passed through the Jordan (Joshua 4).  Symbolically speaking, they had just been baptized.  They'd just entered into the Promise (Hebrews 4:8).

They had arrived.   Yet the good news is -- so have you! And your conversion experience has been far more glorious (2 Cor. 4). Christ is the stone that commemorates your arrival into the Kingdom (Matthew 21:42). But to live in the bliss of this truth, belief and contemplation is required.

There is a violence that comes with believing (Matthew 11:12).  There is a necessity to tear and to rend your heart; to return to the truth.  There is a putting off of the old and a welcoming of the new.  There is a dying to oneself -- but only in the sense of remembering that you've already been reborn and made new! Belief will always produce tangible results.