Colossians 3:3 English Standard Version (ESV) For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Yesterday’s devotional ended with these words. “We have already been executed. Jeopardy is applied. We cannot be crucified afresh.” Being hidden in Christ prevents the executioner from finding us.

Do we believe that? Do we act like it is true? What does believing in this very thing do to us who are still walking around in the dust of the ground? How we receive and believe truth should make a difference in how we act. It should permeate our minds and place us in a position of security as believers in Christ.

Romans 6:3-4 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

This death we died in Christ is a judicial declaration by God in the courts of heaven where our final resting place will be determined. We walk in newness of life her and now and that will not be taken away from us when we leave this earthly realm. Since our lives are hidden in Christ the second death cannot touch us.

Revelation 2:11 English Standard Version (ESV) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’

Revelation 20:14 English Standard Version (ESV) Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

Believing that we have escaped this second death should effect how we walk now in this present life. We celebrate each Easter the Cross of Christ as a reminder that He died in our place, because of our sins. That is a personal appeal to walk circumspect in this life, in Christ.

Matthew 26:41 English Standard Version (ESV) Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Mark 14:38 English Standard Version (ESV) Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Romans 8:3 English Standard Version (ESV) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

I appreciate that Matthew and Mark quoted the exact same words. It is confirming a truth which we can all identify with. Paul explains for us in Romans 8:3 what the effect weak flesh has in connection with keeping the law. Weak flesh keeps the law from performing the function of being righteous. If we do right we are right.

Knowing we are weak God sent His Son Jesus Christ to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, to condemn sin itself. The first verse in Romans 8 puts condemnation to task and is the subject of the first portions of Romans 8.

Romans 8:1 English Standard Version (ESV) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Some manuscripts add who walk not according to the flesh (but according to the Spirit). Those words added to the ESV translation are a reminder that if we are in Christ, this is how we should walk with Christ. It seems we need to be constantly reminded of how to walk. Perhaps that is because we still have to deal with our weak flesh.

Before we go too far afield allow me to draw us back to the no condemnation issue. Romans 8:3 point out that sin has been condemned. It lives under a death sentence. That is what condemned means. We who are in Christ no longer live under a sentence of death.

We have already been executed. Jeopardy is applied. We cannot be crucified afresh.