The Issue of Sin
As some of you know, my niece and her un-born son died in April. Her husband and my sister, her mother, took the death certificate and her identity document clearly stamped “DECEASED” to all the places that she had business dealings with to close the accounts. Three months later, when I was visiting my sister, one of the banks was still haunting the widower. This time they insisted on proof of residence and proof of her income for the past three months. He could no longer deal with it and called my sister to deal with it. This is what she said: “I am going to take a picture of her grave. Then I will take the picture and one of the funeral bulletins to them. That is her address now. They can see how much they can get from her.”
If you then be raised with Christ… If you are in Christ Jesus... then let the dead things stay dead. Before the resurrection comes death. It is a great revelation that when Jesus Christ died, I died. There is a giving up of the old to embrace the new. When something attempts to arise the same old emotions, the same old thinking that made you re-act and led to sin, say to it that you are dead. Deal with life as if you are dead to it but alive to God. That is what Romans 6 means when it says: “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.” Do not yield yourself to all those old things anymore. Colossians 2 speaks of our funeral, our death to the basic principles of this life. We are dead not only to sin, but also to the law, to the principles that gives self/flesh power; the things that make up rules, regulations, principles, laws to live by. These things, says Paul, are just shadows. These practices are just shadow-worship. We have to lay aside all the things that is not of God, does not give God glory and complicate our relationship with Him.
Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Notice the past tense..."were" It is in our B.C. - "Before Christ" When we are nagged, pursued by the old habits, the old patterns of behavior, when there is a voice coming at all hours of night and day to respond in the same old, dirty rotten ways: Take the picture and say to those old places and old faces that you are buried with Christ. Say that you are dead, that it is no longer you that live, but Christ that lives in and through you.
This is not done in our own strength but by the power, the ability of the Holy Spirit. Walk in the Holy Spirit, talk in the Holy Spirit, live in the Holy Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts, the temptation, of the flesh, old self in sin. (Gal 5:16) The Psalmist wrote: “Your Word have I hid in my heart, that I should not sin against You.” Jesus said that if we dwell, if we abide in Him and His word in us then we may ask what we will and it will be done to us. John 15 speaks of an abiding in the Vine, where Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. Make the relationship with God, the Father, through Jesus Christ in the power/ability of the Holy Spirit, the most important thing. You will be able to hang up on the call, to send the picture and say “I am dead”.
And then God makes another provision in 1 John 2:1-2 we read: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” So when we do miss it, on the rare occasion that we do answer the call and go along with the voices from the past to the things we are declared dead to, run back to Jesus. Run back to Him and be washed, be cleansed, be made whole. The wages of sin is death. There will always be death, disease, suffering, trauma and brokenness where sin is. But we have an answer. God provided a way out. We can be free from the slavery of sin, self and satan through Jesus Christ and appropriating His finished work; His death, burial and resurrection; to our lives.
There is no cleaving before there is leaving. There is no resurrection without a preceding death. We cannot continue our walk with God in newness of life, while still holding on to the old, sinful ways. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be! God forbid! What a ghastly thought!
