Sin is our enemy!
There is no doubt about it, sin is an enemy against living the Christ
life...and believers battle it continuously! Would you knowingly give
any tools to your enemy so that he could overpower you and keep you
ineffective? Off course not! By just trying to follow the law you are
actually supplying the enemy the tools to defeat you!
Before you condemn and sentence me by banishment to hell consider the following.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (1 Corinthians 15:56)
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would
not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have
known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced
in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
(Romans 7:7-8)
What! What!! What!!! Are you saying that God's
holy, righteous and good law, established by God Himself can be fuel for
sin? should I dare to say it...YES! Is it because the law is bad or
wrong?...No! We have a fallen, rebellious nature which is naturally
disobedient. And the law is God's mirror to show us that distrusting,
rebellious nature. (You can continue reading about this in chapters 7
and 8 of Romans.)
For a believer to live a victorious life, he
must die to the law. How foolish it would be to maintain a relationship
with a dead spouse after remarrying. We are to be faithful to the new,
living spouse...not the one who is dead. The law has no place in a
believer’s life. When dying to the law becomes a reality believed in the
heart, not just words spoken by the mouth, then sin loses its power!
Please understand. The law that we've been talking about dying to is
"the law of sin and death." It's that set of rules which point out our
sins. For the Jews, it's the laws, statutes and regulations embodied by
the Ten Commandments. For the Gentiles, it's basically the same thing
but written on our hearts (Romans 2). And in both cases... Jews and
Gentiles...the penalty for breaking even one is death. There is another
law to live under; it's the law of the Spirit of life.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me
free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to
do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he
condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of
the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the
sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)
We
have been freed from the law of sin and death. Under that law, whoever
sins is to be put to death. But we now serve God based on a new law.
Whoever has the Spirit has been made alive...eternally alive because of
God’s Grace Message!
Comments
Post a Comment