KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Dead
PERHAPS THE BEST way for us to be able to realize the terribleness of sin and the ugliness of spiritual death to draw an illustration from the physical realm...
I am asking you to search your own reservoir of experience and recall the most repugnant scene of death you ever viewed. Maybe you can remember coming across the carcass of a dead animal along a roadway or in the woods. Possibly the animal had been dead for several days, and its body was bloated, the maggots at work, and the stench was overwhelming.
Let me ask you what you did. Did you quickly fetch a lawn chair and breathe deeply the putrefying odor? No, I think not! Rather, you were totally repulsed by what you saw and smelled, and you turned away and left the scene as quickly as possible. At least I know that has been my reaction on similar occasions from my own past experiences and I imagine your reactions were the same.
THOUGHT: Now if we can identify with that illustration from the physical realm, then hopefully we will be more perceptive in considering the loathsome condition of souls dead in sin. (Maxie Boren)
KneEmail: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:4-9).