Read Romans 6 Alive to God

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

Paul having stated of believer as safe under grace response to the problem of habitual sin by some as grace would abound. Rather it should cause them to realize as freedom from bondage of sinful nature and liberated to live for God.

The believer is to reckon, to account the old sinful nature as forever dead because of our identification with Jesus death on the cross. He illustrated the believers death to sin by baptism as one is buried with Christ.

The death to sin is only one side of the equation. The old man is gone, but the new man lives on through resurrection with Christ. It is as if a living death as Paul subsequently said, I am crucified with Christ It is made possible through the quickening of the Holy Spirit that raise Jesus from the dead also make us alive to God. In Jesus, we are truly set free and are offered the opportunity to obey the natural inclination of the new man to please God and honour Him.

The choice is ours. We are not under bondage to be slave to it. We are free to live the life already given us. Yet, many Christians never experience this freedom. Because of unbelief, self-reliance, or ignorance, many Christians never live in the freedom Jesus paid for on the cross.

D. L. Moody used to speak of an old black woman in the South following the Civil War. Being a former slave, she was confused about her status and asked: Now is I free, or been I not? When I go to my old master he says I aint free, and when I go to my own people they say I is, and I dont know whether Im free or not. Some people told me that Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation, but master says he didnt; he didnt have any right to.

By falling back to our old nature, which is lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life is our choice as if dog going back to its vomit it is living in the flesh and mind the thing of the flesh that will lead ultimately death. This isnt our nature who are believers in Christ. The old is buried at baptism. It is inconsistent to what the word said who we are if we live in sin.

Prayer: Lord, You have made me alive to Yourself, to live by Your Spirit. I need not subject to the bondage of the evil ones either outwardly or in the flesh. I therefore reckon myself as dead to such old nature. I am new creation and live the Christ life.

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