"That's what Paul is after. Dying leads to real living--"Christ who lives in me," a life so deeply connected to the divine that we no longer live, but our lives are "hidden with Christ in God." Dying "with" Jesus leads to new life now, what Paul calls a movement "from death to life" (Romans 6:1-14). This is good news, the best news. When we "die," God doesn't leave us dead. God brings us back to life--"raising us from the dead," as Paul puts it. We die in order to be raised, and not just in a future one-day-at-the-end-of-the-world way we talk about at funerals. Dying and rising is how followers of Jesus live and experience God in the present."