Thursday 7 Feb 2019

February 7: Romans 6:1-7

Key Verse: Romans 6:6
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin

Devotion:
Just because we know Christ is willing and just to forgive us of all of our sins we bring before Him, does not mean we can go out and sin a bit more so we can show just how much He does love us – that would be counter intuitive. We need to separate ourselves from sin and we do that by following on in Christ’s example. No, we don’t all have to go and be nailed to the cross so we can die, nor should be take our lives and make sure we do die. What we do need to do is to give up one life so another may reign.

We started out living in a life of sin. That life was the only one we knew about until someone was kind enough to tell us about God. When we then found out more about God, we wanted to bring Him into our lives, and we did so by admitting we were sinners and asking Him to forgive us for those sins. At that moment we can say we let go of our life of sin, or we died from that life of sin. Just like there are marvels of science and medicine which can now bring people back from the point of death, we may not fully let go of our life of sin but rather cling to it because we don’t know any other life. But we will never move on until we do let go of it.

Baptism is our way of showing others we are letting go of the life of sin and are being buried under Christ’s cleansing blood. When we come back up again, we are being born into a new life where we are not bound by sin. The physical act of baptism does not do this, Christ does the forgiving! The baptism is just our way of showing people we are willing to let go of our sin life and take on our new life in Christ. It is God who gets the glory and we are the ones showing everyone else we are willing to take on our new life in Christ with all to see... It is by God’s grace that we are saved from our death penalty and it is through His mercy we can continue to live, but let go of that old life of sin we must...

Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard letting go?

Are you depending on God to help you let go?