Good morning people who allow God’s Word to shape your present position in Christ.

Romans 6:11-12 MEV Likewise, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

If you are a believer, your challenge is not that you are not dead to sin, but rather, it is that you do not consider yourselves to be dead to sin. Please read this again.

This statement is preceded by the word likewise; in the same way. The context is Paul writing about Jesus and referring to the death that He died that has no further dominion over Him. Jesus died to sin once for all, and now we are also to consider ourselves to be dead to sin in the same way – once for all. Every sin has been paid for by Jesus, and it no longer has legal authority to rule in our lives!

If this was not the truth, Paul could not have written therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Paul removed the right for us to declare, “I just couldn’t say NO to that temptation.”

1 Corinthians 10:13 MEV No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, and He will not permit you to be tempted above what you can endure, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

There is always a way of escape from every temptation – always. The sad reality is that we don’t always take the way of escape. Sometimes we want to do what we want to do. Sometimes we try to rely on our own ability to say NO. At other times we simply don’t believe that we can say NO; we don’t consider ourselves to be dead to sin. But there is always a way to honour God.

Facing temptation and having desires for what is wrong is not evidence that we have a sinful nature. It is simply evidence that we are alive. Don’t forget that Jesus faced every temptation we do – not because He is sinful, but because He was human. We must not confuse this issue.

Therefore, Paul is right when he wrote under the inspiration and leadership of the Holy Spirit that we should not let sin reign – have the authority and final say – in our lives. We don’t have to obey every desire that we have. Jesus didn’t, and we shouldn’t either.

Hebrews 4:15-16 MEV For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who was in every sense tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let us then come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 

Watch my recent sermon ‘Hearing God’s Voice through God’s Word’.