I answer some interesting phone calls at the 911 center. Just a few days ago, I spoke to a confused individual who was trying to figure out whether he was alive or dead. After determining his location, my co-workers sent police and an ambulance to help him. The officers wanted him to come downstairs to his front door to meet them, to which he said, “Well, if I’m a ghost, I can just float down there!” I agreed with his logic, and suggested that he try walking through the door without opening it. “If you can’t float through the door, you’re not a ghost,” I advised.

While the incident was amusing and sad at the same time, many Christians live in the same state of doubt, unsure whether they are alive or dead spiritually. When a person obeys the gospel, God moves him from a state of spiritual death to life.

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 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 in 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.” (Ephesians 2:1-7).

Don’t be confused anymore. If you have obeyed from the heart the gospel and are striving to live faithfully for the Lord, you are alive in Him!