Did you ever realize that you're surrounded by dead people? Everywhere you turn, you see people that are literally dead. What exactly am I talking about? Hear the words of Ephesians 2:1-3

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

This past weekend was homecoming at the local university, and as I saw one stone drunk college student after another stumble past my house, I was reminded that I'm surrounded by spiritually dead people. I saw hundreds of college students passionately indulging in sin, pursuing the very things that would make them unhappy, and I was reminded that this world is a spiritual morgue. The truth is, I'm surrounded by millions of people who are dead.

Which brings me to the question of the millennium: why am I alive? I too was once dead in my sins. I too was an object of the wrath of God, doomed to hell and destined to pursue the fleeting joys of this world. But for some reason God chose to save me. God breathed life into my spiritually dead soul, and made me spiritually alive.

I go into the grocery store and I give money to a dead cashier. I go out to dinner with my wife, and exchange pleasantries with a dead waiter. I talk to my neighbors...who are dead. But praise be to God, He made me alive. I will forever sing the praises of the One who made me alive. The only response to such grace is abundant gratefulness.