Beauty From Ashes

Ugliness rears its head - sin.

We've been redeemed; we've been bought. Why do we still struggle?

Why do we commit suicide and contradict sainthood with sin?

Why does flesh fight and faith so often lose?

Each morning I wake flesh dies, but before my day even begins it has been resurrected.

I say, I trust You, Lord Jesus, and live like He never rose again.

Body of death holds me captive; life of the Spirit alludes me.

Until. I die.

But I am dead. No, you must die. Truly, once for all. Never to be resurrected. Christ alone comes back, lives, breathes. You die.

His life in place of mine. His Spirit instead of mine. His glory = my death. Before Christ we were dead men walking. Not much has changed. Now we are dead men, living because we are united with the only One who has ever truly lived.

Secret to the victorious life? You don't have one. Life, that is. His life is victorious, simply because it actually is life and not death. Victory you will never have. He is victory. Do you have Him? He is all you can have; all you can hold onto. He is life; He is victory. His is victorious life.

You are dust of death. Nothing. He is beauty. From dust Adam was formed; His life breathed in was Adam's source of living. Then ugliness reared its head - sin. Adam took it upon himself to live; left God life behind. Adam fell dead, and in him we all died because we sought to live.

Sin, suicide, life by own dead strength.

Open your eyes. See. Perceive your blindness. Let Him crush you, Adam. Be broken. Die.

Victorious Life, live in our death, laugh in our sorrow, heal in our hopelessness. Reap wealth in our poverty, blaze light in our darkness, see in our blindness, rejoice in our pain.

Be beauty in our ashes.