A critter characteristic creeps into Christianity …

A widespread acceptance of “Possum Christianity” is a key contributor to draining the church of both its purity and its power.

The opossum, more commonly referred to simply as “possum,” is the fairly defenseless critter that plays dead when it’s actually quite alive. Like that deceitful creature, many church members sitting in sanctuaries are playing like they are dead to their old (sin) nature, when the truth is their flesh still rules outside (and sometimes inside!) of church services.

The church cannot be the empowered body of Christ in such an impure state; sin robs the church of its power to present the Gospel in a compelling way to a lost world. For this reason, the Apostle Paul exhorts us toward staying dead instead of playing dead:

“For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God,” he writes in Colossians 3:3, and continues with, “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you” in verse 5 and “Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him,” in verse 10.

It’s only by staying dead to our old nature, and putting on our new nature, that we can carry out the remainder of Paul’s exhortation in verses 16 and 17:

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”

Are you playing dead to your old nature, or staying dead to it?

Scotty