God's Roadmap

Now may the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father God, who loved us and in his wonderful grace gave us eternal comfort and a beautiful hope that cannot fail, encourage your hearts and inspire you with strength to always do and speak what is good and beautiful in his eyes (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 TPT).


Sunday, January 28, 2018

The Walking Dead Gives Lesson on Life

by Barbara Latta

“Blood thirsty rogues and unrepentant cutthroats,” said Ezekiel as a crowd gathered around
Leave the dead girl in the grave

him. His comment was meant to describe those who were pursuing him and his band of followers.

This Ezekiel is not the biblical prophet, but a character from the TV series, The Walking Dead. I admit I have never watched an entire episode, but I have seen enough to know the humans are fleeing from zombies.

A dead body powered by an evil spirit in a post-apocalyptic world is out to suck the life out of those who are still alive. If a zombie bites or scratches a human, that human is doomed to become one of the walking dead. Wouldn’t you flee, too? A decaying, bloody skin-covered skeleton with all the characteristics of death wants your life.  Yeah, run!

The Bible says if we are born again, we are new creations. Then why do we sometimes act like we are friends with a zombie?

We know that our old self was put to death on the execution-stake with him, so that the entire body of our sinful propensities might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin (Romans 6:6 CJB).

Sin sucks the life out of us. We are born with a sin nature. We could say a zombie nature. Trusting in Christ takes away that nature and replaces it with His. We are now made new in our spirit, but our soul (mind) can still want to hang on the zombie traits.

That’s where the Word of God comes in to renew our minds and line our thinking up with the way God thinks. But when life gets in the way and disaster strikes, or sickness hits or someone gets in our way, the dead man wants to come out and influence our actions. I call mine Dead Girl. Dead Girl was buried when I was born again. She was placed in a grave and a new me was resurrected with Christ.

  • ·         But when someone drives like a maniac in front of me Dead Girl wants to yell through the windshield.
  • ·         I lose my keys, or my glasses or my cell phone that I had in my hand only moments before and frustration opens the grave. Dead Girl knocks.
  • ·         Thoughts of regret over the past condemn me and Dead Girl starts talking.
  • ·         Comparing myself to others brings Dead Girl’s voice of envy.

Dead to sin and alive to Christ
This is what Dead Girl does. She is an unrepentant rogue and a blood thirsty cutthroat. She is the old person. Anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, greed, envy, regret, condemnation and shame are the stench of death emanating from her. Romans 6:6 says, “Leave the dead girl in the grave” (my paraphrase) because our old self was put to death on the execution stake.

The blood of Christ is the nail in the coffin. The final nail. No matter what we have done or what we still may do, the voice of love, purity and redemption reminds us He has washed away the rottenness of sin. Dead Girl’s voice must be replaced with heavenly Father’s voice.

Dead Girl will still try to rise from time to time, but her time out of the grave can become less and less the more time we spend in the Word of God. The Word is life, and life and death cannot co-exist.

After all, a cemetery is not a tourist attraction. We don’t hang around the tombs for fun, so why listen to the voice of Dead Girl and obey what she says?

We can live for God instead of walking with the dead.




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