To answer this question, we need to understand the human condition.

Man was created by God perfect in all aspects: in body, mind, and spirit. In that condition he was able to live in perfect harmony with the will of God, and never to die. And God also gave him freedom to choose good or evil. Unfortunately, he chose evil.

From that very moment, man was no longer perfect. He became imperfect and he had to die, and his will was no longer in harmony with the will of God. Starting with doubt, he also added vice, ignorance, intemperance, impatience, mercilessness, unkindness, and hatred. The works of the flesh were manifest in him: “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19–21).

He who thus had been created in the image of God was then a slave of Satan. Being a servant of Satan he was now like a ship without a rudder, driven by the wind and tossed about, going from sin to sin, without hope, toward shipwreck of life and perdition.

Man was not happy in this condition, but how could he escape his sad future? All he could do was like a dirty garment, as he was unable to solve his problem. Was he who was born as a son of God to perish as a slave of sin? This is the human condition, and it is our natural condition.

But thanks to God, He sent His Son to die for man, opening a way through which we can escape that miserable fate. But in order to have this way of escape, we need to be in Christ.

We have seen that if we are not in Christ, we cannot solve our problem with sin and its consequences of death. But how can we be in Christ?

To be in Christ means to be a new creature—a new creation. To be a new creature means that we must die to our selfish nature and be born again with new life in Christ. To die to self means that our “old man”—with its naturally sinful thoughts and actions—is crucified with Jesus, and we know that he who is dead is freed from sin. Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, and He will live in us. We will be alive unto God through Jesus Christ. So we will be born again by the Word of God and start a new life for His glory. This is possible only if we see and recognize that we are hopeless, renouncing our selfish, sinful ways by accepting through faith Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

It is not easy for man to recognize his hopelessness. Many see that they are in a bad situation, but prefer to ignore this fact because to recognize it means that they are nothing and that no genuine good can come from them. And so many prefer to continue in their own paths toward the ways of death.

Only by looking to Jesus can we see our actual nothingness. But thanks to God, we see also the infinite love of God toward us.

Accepting Jesus as our Saviour we begin a new life, and we will be in Christ.

As soon as we accept Jesus as our Saviour we will be in Christ, we will be a new creature, His workmanship created in Jesus Christ unto good works. Being freely justified, free from the law of sin, having no condemnation, we will walk in the Spirit and His fruit will be manifest in us—“love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22, 23). Having from Christ wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, we will walk in the narrow path going upward and, beginning with faith, we will add to our experience “virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5–7).

By being one with Christ we will develop the pure mind that is His. We are adopted as sons of God and cheerful servants of righteousness, ambassadors for Him, bringing the word of reconciliation and truth to our fellow mortals who are without hope. We are no longer “dead” living persons, but alive, and blessed with all spiritual blessings, having no confidence in the flesh.

Rejoicing in this liberty, we will suffer persecution because the world will hate us, but in Christ we will triumph.

Then “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17). Imagine! Living forever with our very Best Friend. All this is what will happen to all who will be in Christ.

Now we have seen that to be in Christ is the most beautiful experience possible in life. It is like starting a race, the prize of which is a place in the new heaven and new earth. But not only the first will win the prize. All who will begin and endure this trip to the end will win the prize, and the only condition is to continually be in Christ. We will lose the prize only if we begin to look at ourselves or to others, forgetting to look to Jesus. But we need not worry. If for some reason we fall, we have only to lift up our eyes and look again toward the loving Saviour, so He will lift us up and put us back on our feet. At the end of the race we will receive the prize. What will we say at that glorious moment? “Saviour, we are unprofitable servants; we have done what was our duty to do and we are here because You have loved us and You died for our salvation.”