Romans 6: 6 – 13 (NKJV)
“6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.“
The New Living Translation puts it this way:
6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
12 Do not let sin control the way you live;[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So, use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.
My dear sister, the sum total of today’s scriptures is that if Jesus is your saviour and Lord, your old sinful nature and my old sinful nature, was crucified with Him to the cross at Calvary. It was nailed there once and for all. So, as Christ resurrected on the third day, we who are in Christ have also been raised to a new life in Him. The old sinful nature has been done away with, it has been dealt with once and for all on the cross. Read the scriptures above time and time again, meditate upon them, ponder upon it. Understand it, grasp it, embrace it and walk in the knowledge of it.
Following what Christ did on the cross in destroying our old sinful man, we are told to “reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin”. In other words, consider yourself indeed to be dead to the power of sin. Remember your sinful nature, the old man has been crucified with Christ. Understand this. Accept that sin does not have to have dominion over you. It is a bit like someone whose debt of a £500,000 has been paid off and they are now debt free. That person goes about with that wonderful knowledge that they are now debt free. They consider and reckon themselves to be debt free because they are indeed debt free. If that person is wise, they don’t want to get into debt again, so they begin to make the right choices to stay debt free. They remember they tyranny they where under while under the burden of debt and refuse to be entangled again with the bondage of debt.
So, coming back to us, we must fully understand and embrace the wonderful knowledge that our old man has been crucified. Once you embrace this knowledge, you must then through the power of the Holy Spirit, choose not to allow sin to control you or succumb to the lure of sin in our daily living. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, sin does not have to rule us or have dominion over us.
My dear sister, you are a new creation, the old man and nature has been taken away. Your body now is the temple of the living God. Serve Him with it.
Agape…..