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MUSIC BLOG

05/01/2025

Dead or Alive

17 “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

I had a very disturbing dream this week.  I dream every night.  That may or may not be your case, but for me, I can rely on dreaming every night.  I remember most of my dreams for a minute after I wake up, but they rarely stick with me for any amount of time.  But my Monday night dream was different.

I dreamt that I was talking to a friend who had lost her husband.  I was consoling her, but I could tell that she wasn’t just grieving her loss.  There was something else afoot.  She didn’t or couldn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.  But I noticed her becoming more and more agitated and angry.  Several scenes of inconsequence passed in my dream and then BAM! I remember looking up and seeing my dead friend.  It was weird and disturbing.  He was smiling but he was also different.  I tried to have a normal conversation with him about “why was he still alive?” to which he gave some story how he and his girlfriend staged his death so he could leave his wife.  I tried to argue with him and told him what I thought about his deception and then I woke up.

I woke up angry!   I woke up feeling deceived.  This was a dream but it felt real.  I pondered on the dream throughout the day.  It seemed that the Lord was speaking to me. He pointed out that when I live in the flesh act out in the flesh it is as if I’m resurrecting a dead man.  When I do that, the effect it has on those around me is quite the same as the effect my friend’s reappearance had on me.  The feeling of being deceived I had is similar to the feelings my friends and family have when they observe a Christian living the old life.  It hurts my witness, it hurts those I love, It hurts God.

Something else struck me. Dead people don’t respond to the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life.  Dead people are immune to the acts and temptations that the Devil would bombard us with.  It made me think, “Am I a living dead person?”

Today, I have had the opportunity to put that thought process into practice.  You know what? It worked!  Telling myself, and in turn telling the devil, that I’m dead to that thought puts me on a different playing field.  It gives me ammo.  It is life-giving, not joy-stealing.  So I say to all my readers.  If we are in Christ, then we must also be dead.  Dead to self.  Dead to sin.  Dead to shame and alive to Christ and alive to God.  What a joy, what a celebration.

Live like you’re dead and make God smile today!

Blessings,

Marty