Sunday 22 Jun 2014

June 22: Romans 6:5-11

Key Verse: Romans 6:8
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him

Devotion:
There is a very real correlation between our lives and the life that Christ lead here on earth in that we need to take notice of how He lived His life and make that lifestyle our goal. There may be no way that we can hope to live as He did, but trying to live more like Him will give us a better understanding of His life and of our own lives. Understanding sin and how we should avoid it is good and proper but our aims should not end there. Anyone can try to avoid sin and may even be able to avoid most of the sin in their lives; but doing so in itself will not get us into heaven with Christ.

It is because of our belief in Christ and all that He has done for us that we are enabled to enter into heaven with Him. It is because of us leaving our old selves behind and living in true belief that He dies for our sins and forgives us of our sins that we should enter into our new lives with Him. Christ paid for what we have done wrong and is willing to forgive us for what we do still do wrong. We need to bring our faults, mistakes and even wilful sins to Him to ask for forgiveness and wisdom to avoid them in the future.

It is no good asking for forgiveness just so we can go out and do it all again; that is not truly admitting to our guilt, merely setting it aside for a while before we commit them again! God wants us to break our habit of sin. God wants us to turn away from our old lives. God wants us to listen more intently to His answers for our lives. For us to do that we have to be willing to let go of the past and move forward with Him. We need to be willing to set aside the old ways and aim toward a new way with Him in our hearts.

With Christ in our hearts we have a very real power within us to set our lives straight and live for Him. Just as Christ allowed His own death to pay for all of those sins, we should be willing to allow the death of our old selves to change us so we can live for Him. It is not just a case of saying that we will change, but more a life-changing decision that we take to be more like Him as we ask for Him to wash us of all unrighteousness in the beginning.

Points to Ponder:
Do you keep hold of your past life?

Will you allow Christ to really clean you?