Skip to main content

Rewired?


Some of us have a tendency to deal too much in the "past tense" of our lives. There is this intense focus on the "what ifs" and the "should haves" instead of the stuff that actually makes up our current picture. Maybe it is because our minds have this way of capturing those moments in living memory - "scrapbooking" the sadness of our past and continually dragging it out to dredge up those old memories. There is one part of "past tense" we don't realize - what has been done doesn't need to be done or rehashed again! Perhaps this is why God thought it so important for us to recognize the futility of continually living in sin when we have ALREADY died to it!

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 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. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. (Romans 6:1-7)

Since we died to sin...this is not present tense, it is past tense. What we once were is no longer what we are now. As death occurs, the very life-giving source is cut off. When we died to sin, the life-giving source was cut off - we stopped feeding what only could produce decay and destruction in our lives. Since really means "in view of the fact that" - it is an established fact, already having been established, and is now inarguable. Once you spread butter on a piece of toast, it is on there. SINCE you spread butter on there, you cannot now "go back" on the decision to have butter on the toast - it is an established fact that butter is now in union with the bread! SINCE we died to sin, it is an established fact that this is no longer the present condition of our heart or mind!

How can we continue to live in it...this is not a casual question, but rather a restatement of the SINCE statement. Our condition has changed. When a mother gives birth to her newborn, she is no longer pregnant, but she remains a mother. She is known as a mother, but she no longer carries around this growing, breathing life within. In terms of our own sin nature, we no longer carry around this sin within us as a growing thing, but we do still have the "nature" which we are known by. It is this "nature" which seems to give us our mental and heart "tie" with the past way of living. We have to recognize that sin is no longer being "fed" from within - it may still beckon to us from without, but it is no longer connected to a life source within! We died with him...our "past" is no longer in existence. Our old man and those ways of doing business have ceased to exist as they once were. I have said it before, but it bears repeating - what is dead is dead - it develops a certain characteristic which makes it quite plain it is dead! Today, with modern science being what it is, we often make what is dead look very much alive! The entire embalming process was designed to slow the process of decay so families could have a few extra days to dress up the dead corpse and say their good-byes. Don't think me crass here, but I think we might just try to dress up our dead corpses of sin so that we can stay connected with them just a little longer!

We also may live new lives...note it is not OLD lives we are to live, but the new. There is no need to return to that which is dead - we don't dig up, wallow around in, and become familiar with that which is physically dead, so why do we do it with the stuff we had a connection with in our past? Why is it so hard to cut ourselves off from the past? Living is a choice. We must determine to take on our new identity and not continue to connect with the old. If we hold onto the old when it was declared to be "dead", wouldn't we be declared a bit foolish? The "old" is dead and the "new" is what we have to live in today. Since we have been united with him...we are now living in agreement with him - adhered so as to be only ONE unit. We no longer function independently from Christ - therefore, he is there to walk us through the choice to sin or live rightly. What we determine to connect to becomes that which is our source for every movement or continued action in our lives. 

Sin has lost its power...at the Cross nothing remains the same. We are no longer subject to it. When something exerts power over something else, there is a dominating influence which must constantly be countered. Since this dominating influence has been broken by the work of the cross, it has been rendered powerless over us. It is what we submit to which determines what we will produce. When power is cut off from one source and connected to another, the potential to live differently occurs. It is a matter of where we stay connected! Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,