Colossians 1:12- “and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” 

An inheritance is something that one receives through the death of another. In order to understand the terms of your inheritance you must read the “last will and testament” of the one who died. After understanding the terms of the inheritance you must then take action to appropriate it’s provision accordingly or otherwise you will receive no benefit. In the same way Jesus has provided for us an entire inheritance through His death upon the Cross, but in order to receive the benefits of that provision we must learn to appropriate it into our lives through faith. The New Testament describes what the Cross has provided for us and how we can experience its power in our lives.

Colossians 3:3- “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross we have been qualified by His blood to share in an inheritance from God. This inheritance begins with receiving the deposit of the Holy Spirit into our lives by faith in Jesus Christ and then allowing Him to lead us into our specific assignment from the Lord. This life that we are now called to live only begins when we are first united with Christ in His death. Our old self was put to death with Jesus and our new self is the inheritor of the life that God ordained for us to live before the foundations of the world.

Romans 6:11- “So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Counting ourselves dead to sin is something that we are called to do by faith. Paul said “I have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20).” This is what it means to count yourself dead to sin, you now recognize through the revelation of God’s word that you are united with Christ in His death first and His resurrection afterwards. In other words, God doesn’t want to “fix” our old self. He wants us to reckon our old self as crucified with Jesus, and this becomes the pathway into living a brand new life that is characterized by His resurrection power.

Ephesians 4:22-24- “to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

If our old self was crucified with Jesus then we can no longer find life from the former way that we lived. We must appropriate the provision of the Cross daily by realizing that God has provided it as a place for our old self to die daily. God wants former ways of living, thinking, and being to be put away from us so that we can walk in the fullness of His Spirit daily. The Cross is not only something that we gaze upon in reflection of the love of Jesus but a place that we embrace for ourselves in order to enter into a resurrected life every day.

Romans 8:13- “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”

The Holy Spirit has been given to all who believe the gospel in order to assist us in appropriating the provision of the Cross to our lives. He enables us to put the misdeeds of our flesh to death so that we can live in the peace and power of God. He enables us to overcome addiction, lust, anger and fear by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the abiding presence of His living word in our lives. When facing a misdeed of the flesh in our life we are able to count it as crucified with Chrsit by inviting the power of the Holy Spirit to do for us what we have never been able to do for ourselves in that area.

Prayer for today: Holy Spirit please help me to identify the misdeeds of the flesh in my life that are holding me back from God’s best in this season. I invite you to put those things to death by the power of the Cross. Enable me to live a life that daily embraces the gospel message of death, burial and resurrection. Enable me to resist temptation and embrace God’s love as the highest aim of my life. I declare that I am crucified with Christ and risen with Him to live differently today. In Jesus name, amen.