Romans 6:12-14
Rebecca Lightfoot
When we turn to Christ and receive HIS Gift of Mercy & Grace,there is a great exchange that happens n our life.Jesus takes all of our sin away,including our heart terminally infected by sin and sin’s entangling web of deceit...and HE takes these things to death by HIS sufferings and sacrifices on the Cross,condemning these things to HELL forever(which is where they intended to drag me forever).The CLAIM these things have on our hearts/spirits/minds/lives are NULLIFIED,& the CHAINS that tethered these things to our hearts/spirits/minds/lives are broken.WE ARE FREED from these things.But,they can still taunt us from the pit of Hell,as well as from their influences in the world around us.We are sorta like addicts that have been freed from the grip of whatever we were once addicted to,but still have bits of our hearts/spirits/minds/lives that can be tempted away from our New FREEDOMS in Christ.These are the “passions” that Romans6:12-14 addresses(Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its passions,and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.).When we trust Christ to save us from our sins,and to provide for our Eternal Security,these “passions” can still cause problems in my life-causing me to succumb to their ways of “brief/temporary gratification” that lead to destroying something in my life(the RIGHT relationships God intends for me to have;my peace;my joy;my confidence in Christ;the right kind of love for others;the role God intended my life to have in the life of others;etc.).Even though the CHAINS these things previously had on my life have been broken, that would’ve drug me to Hell,I can still succumb to their taunting.But these verses n Romans encourage us to not only be aware of these “tauntings”,but to be deliberate in the ways we “aggressively” defeat them(but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.)by reminding ourselves of what Jesus has freed us from,and then turning away from the tauntings coming from sinful urges & desires,and claim our identity in Christ as being ALIVE from the dead...the “dead influences” that the tauntings continue to scream for us to return to.Galatians5:1 says it this way-“For freedom Christ has set us free;stand firm therefore,and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery(to sin).”Even though we are FREE,we must determine to stand firm,& not to submit again.Dear Lord,I hear and sense these tauntings every day.My Your Grace remind me of the FREEDOM You have paid for me to have,and remind me of what these these tauntings truly represent->the very things that I was once CHAINED to that Eternally Condemned me to forever being lost to sin.