Laura
Brooks, a 52-year-old mother of two, didn’t know it but she was one of 14,000
people in 2011 whose name was incorrectly entered into the government database
as dead. She wondered what was wrong when she stopped receiving disability
checks, and her loan payments and her rent checks bounced. She went to the bank
to clear up the issue, but the representative told her that her accounts had
been closed because she was dead! Obviously, they were mistaken.
The
apostle Paul was not mistaken when he said that the Ephesian believers were at
one point dead—spiritually dead. They were dead in the sense that they were
separated from God, enslaved to sin (Eph. 2:5), and condemned under the wrath
of God. What a state of hopelessness!
Yet
God in His goodness took action to reverse this condition for them and for us.
The living God “who gives life to the dead” (Rom. 4:17) poured out His rich
mercy and great love by sending His Son Jesus to this earth. Through Christ’s
death and resurrection, we are made alive (Eph. 2:4-5).
When we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we go from death to life. Now we live to rejoice in His goodness!
