Easter Blog

So today was Easter... arguably the best holiday that we celebrate.
My day consisted of waking up and finding out that my brother still hadn't taken a shower, and consequentially rushing when it was my turn to get out of the house in time.
Was only a few minutes late to practice/not actually practice because there wasn't time/stand around and wait for 10:01.
ANYWAY, the point is, p.Dave talked a little bit out of Romans 8.
Verses 1-4 read:
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." [NIV]

I bolded out the important part for you.
It basically explains everything that nonchristians don't understand.

When sin was introduced to the world, Man was kicked out of the Garden of Eden; human kind could no longer be so close to God, couldn't walk with the Father, couldn't be innocent. Sin was a barrier between us and God.

To overcome sin, we have everyone's favorite staff-wielding, bush-fearing, no-formal-training leader, Moses.
You know, the whole wandering in the desert thing for 40 years and such... well God had Moses establish the Jewish law.
You all know what Jewish law is. Its all those crazy things in Deuteronomy.
Anyway, essentially the law made sin "illigal".
It accounted for just about everything imaginable that man was capable of doing that God didn't want man to do.
So theoretically, an upright Jewish person didn't sin.
In that respect, God made it pretty straight forward. All Israel had to do was follow the laws, and they were all set.
Except the law couldn't account for the fact that, well, laws can be broken.

So the theoretical upright Jews that didn't sin were pretty few... and many who followed the law, like the religious leaders that Jesus had so much beef with, only followed the law as an exercise, and not from their hearts.

So it turned out that God's law wasn't a good solution to humankind's big problem.

That's where Romans 8 comes in... "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering"
Under the law we were still controlled by our fleshy, sinful desires.
Seeing as how law is a rather intangible thing, it couldn't do a whole lot to stop us.
But what Jesus did by dying on the cross was "condemned sin in sinful man", and set us free from ourselves.
And now we can be controlled by the Spirit; no longer ruled by the flesh.
We don't have to worry about following the law, because everything the law put into effect comes naturally through the spirit.
Paul goes on in verses 5-8:
"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."

See; we don't have to have a sinful mind anymore. We have Jesus.
That's basically why Easter is so cool.