New life

DEVOTION

ROMANS

NEW LIFE

Rom 6:1-4

6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

NIV

Here is the famous saying that makes everything clear as mud. Should we go in sinning that grace may increase? No, of course not, we should live without sinning. Yet we also know if we never sinned again we would then be as perfect as Jesus, and then we would not need Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. If not sinning were a choice or decision of our will, then anyone, with or without accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior could live a life totally free of sin. So then what does this mean? The idea of being dead to sin gives us the picture of a dead man in the grave. He no longer has life, which is to say life has no influence upon him. In that sense sin no longer has an influence on a person who is dead. Yet why do we still sin? Is there a difference between living in sin and sinning? Before we accepted Jesus, we were living in sin. Sin was the major influence in our life. We may not have said or even believed that was the case because we did not even believe there was such a thing as sin. We were not aware of the law which shows what sin is. However, once we were saved, we found out what sin was and we had to repent of that sin and turn to follow Jesus. Yet we still sin. How can we make sense of this? Living in sin and sinning have to be two different lives. If we died to sin then sin no longer rules in our members, we do not want to sin any more, we want to live like Jesus. At least that is the goal. To live free of sin is the goal. But we will not get there in this life. Sin does not rule us, but we still fail God and commit sin. We don’t want to, but we are weak. We are not strong enough alone, so we need Jesus. We are living a new life, a life in Christ with the desire to do that which is good and refrain from that which is not good. It is all so confusing in that we decided to follow Jesus, yet we still sin. But we do not live in sin. We do not live to sin, we live to please God. What is the best way we can please God? Accept his free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus we have the forgiveness of sin, but we no longer live to sin, we make every effort not to sin. Yet the smallest of thought, or escaped word, or littlest of deed which is not pleasing to God is sin. That is being human, not divine. Yet we died to sin, so it does not rule over us, we live under the rule of Jesus. Praise God, without Jesus we would be doomed. But because of Jesus we live a new life.