Compelling Love

In Romans 6:4, Paul exhorts believers to walk in “newness of life”:

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

Walking in newness of life means living a new life in union with Christ, knowing who we are in Him, and who He is in us.

Romans 6:3-4 (Good News Translation)
³ For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death. ⁴ By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.

Colossians 1 (Good News Translation)
²⁷ God’s plan is to make known his secret to his people, this rich and glorious secret which he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you, which means that you will share in the glory of God.

By believing in Jesus Christ and receiving Him as Savior and Lord, we are born again and have peace with God, entering into a new relationship of grace.

Romans 5:1-2 (J.B. Phillips New Testament)
¹ Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.

The hymn Victory in Jesus by Eugene M. Bartlett (1885-1941) celebrates this new identity and walk with God.

 I heard an old, old story,
How a Savior came from glory
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me;
I heard about His groaning,
Of His precious blood’s atoning,
Then I repented of my sins
And won the victory.
O victory in Jesus, my Savior forever!
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood.
He loved me ere I knew Him,
And all my love is due Him.
He plunged me to victory
Beneath the cleansing flood.

We live in victory and newness of life by walking in the light.

1 John 1:5-7 (NKJV)
⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

By faith in Jesus Christ, surrendering our lives to Him, we become new creations.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV), “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

J. B. Phillips renders this passage as follows:

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (J.B. Phillips New Testament)
¹⁷ For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new. ¹⁸ All this is God’s doing, for he has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ; and he has made us agents of the reconciliation. ¹⁹ God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself—not counting their sins against them—and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are now Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were appealing direct to you through us. As his personal representatives we say, “Make your peace with God.”

²¹ For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God.

As we walk with the Lord, the light of His love shines ever more brightly in our lives.

“But the path of the just is like the shining sun,
That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” 
Proverbs 4:18 (NKJV)

Jesus declared in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

In John 17, Jesus prayed that believers would be with him and behold his glory, that the love of the Father would be in us, and that He himself would be in us.

John 17 (NKJV)
²⁴ “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. ²⁶ And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Paul echoes this prayer in Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

David likewise prays in Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we joyously walk in newness of life.