07/01/2023
Hello Saint!
NUGGETS
On the basis of our union with Christ,
‘Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 6:11).
He is not suggesting that we have died to the possibility of temptation or sinning, but that we have died to the sin nature which was the dominant power which reigned in us.
In Christ, we are now seated in the heavenly places and alive unto God.
We are partakers of the divine nature.
Another power, much greater than sin, rules in us now; that is, the power of His grace.
We stand in the grace of God (Rom.5:2; 1 Pet 5:12).
Godliness is at the core of our being.
It is the essence of our new nature.
In the same way that sin produced the certainty of sinful behaviour, grace produces the certainty of holiness.
As far as our unredeemed bodies are concerned, sin remains and will make its appeal to us from that base.
Sometimes we will think that we are just the same now as when we were in Adam, so we will give in to sin’s demands.
That’s why Paul has taken time to explain that we are not in Adam anymore.
We are now in Christ.
Therefore, sin is not our master.
We are empowered by grace to reign: ‘... as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom.5:21).
We must not fall for the lies of some branches of modern psychology which would have us believe that we are victims of our upbringing and therefore doomed to problematic behaviour.
That may be true of those in Adam, but not of those in Christ.
- It’s not the way that we were raised that matters, but the way that He was raised!
- He died and was raised out of the realm of sin and death and now lives unto God.
- We were raised with Him that we might reign in life by the mighty working of His power in us.
_‘Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ’
(Rom.5:17).
Prayer
That we'll not base and live our lives according to how we were raised but we'll always draw our life, identity and victory from how he was raised from the dead for we were raised together with Him.
AMEN!
