¹² Do not let sin con­trol the way you live; do not give in to sin­ful desires. ¹³ Do not let any part of your body become an instru­ment of evil to serve sin. Instead, give your­selves com­pletely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instru­ment to do what is right for the glory of God. ¹⁴ Sin is no longer your mas­ter, for you no longer live under the require­ments of the law. Instead, you live under the free­dom of God’s grace.

The Answer

Yes­ter­day, I sug­gested that it was actu­ally pos­si­ble to live your life as a Christ fol­lower with­out sin. Let me make it clear, I don’t believe it’s pos­si­ble to live sin­lessly with­out giv­ing your life over to Christ. With­out his grace applied to one’s life, we are still slaves to the power of sin. But, once we apply his grace, and give our lives over to God, then it cer­tainly is possible.

Today, Paul answers the ques­tion that most of you are think­ing: How is it pos­si­ble? How do I live with­out still sinning?

Paul’s answer: Give your­self over to God daily. Okay, he doesn’t add the “daily” part, but I know I need to do it daily.

Paul sug­gests that the way to live a life free of sin is to make sure that you are always in a place of sub­mit­ting to God. With every sit­u­a­tion, at ever point of temp­ta­tion, you stop and con­sider how you should respond as a fol­lower of Christ. You see, temp­ta­tion isn’t a sin. If that was the case, then the Bible is wrong about Jesus. How so? Well, the Bible clearly states that Jesus was with­out sin. That is why he could be the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice for us. And yet, the Bible also tells us that Jesus was tempted. His temp­ta­tion took place in the wilder­ness. You can read about it here. Jesus was tempted and did not sin.

So, just because you’ve been tempted doesn’t mean you’ve sinned. It’s what you do with that temp­ta­tion that deter­mines sin­ful­ness. If you act on the temp­ta­tion, like I have done many times, then it’s sin. How­ever, if you turn that temp­ta­tion over to God and move for­ward with his strength, then you can resist the temp­ta­tion, and there­fore not sin.

It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? And yet, we all know that it’s not that easy to live out.

Now that Paul has pointed out to his read­ers that they are no longer oblig­ated to sin, that they are free from the power of sin, he goes back to answer the ques­tion he asked at the begin­ning of this chap­ter. But, that’s for tomorrow.

My prayer: Thank you, Lord, that I am no longer a slave to sin. If I’m hon­est, there are days when I feel like I still am a slave, but the truth of your Word is that I am free from the power of sin. I can say no to the temp­ta­tions I face. I can’t do it on my own, but that’s the point. I’m not sup­posed to live my life on my own. As a fol­lower of Christ, I am invited to turn my life over to you. Every part of my life. And so, I freely do that again today. I turn my life over to you and I lean on you in those moments of temp­ta­tion. Help me. Strengthen me. Give me vic­tory. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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⁵ Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. ⁶ 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. ⁷ For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. ⁹ We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. ¹⁰ When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. ¹¹ So you also should con­sider your­selves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Stop Sin­ning

I imag­ine that if you only looked at the head­ings for each day’s post, you might be a lit­tle con­fused. Yes­ter­day, I titled the post Keep On Sin­ning. Today, it’s the oppo­site. Just try­ing to keep you all on your toes!

Let me ask you a ques­tion. As a Christ fol­lower, is it pos­si­ble to not sin? I mean, could some­one who has turned their life over to Christ live the rest of their days with­out ever com­mit­ting another sin? Think about that for a sec­ond before you read on.

I asked that ques­tion a few months ago at Bik­ers’ Church. The response was almost unan­i­mous: No, it’s not pos­si­ble. It’s the same response I get from most peo­ple when I ask that ques­tion. Most peo­ple sug­gest that it’s impos­si­ble to keep from sin­ning at all when we live in a world as messed up as this one. That even though you might try your best to not sin, you’re going to screw up from time to time.

I don’t agree. I believe it is pos­si­ble to live your life as a Christ fol­lower with­out ever sin­ning again. Is it likely? No. But it is pos­si­ble. The answer above is par­tially right: it is tough to live in a world such as this one and not sin. I know I’ve failed mis­er­ably more often than I’d like to admit. But just because I fail, doesn’t mean it’s not pos­si­ble to live sinlessly.

I believe that’s what Paul is get­ting at in this pas­sage. He’s try­ing to get his read­ers to stop see­ing them­selves as help­less to power of sin. We are not slaves to sin. Sin does not con­trol us. And so, the­o­ret­i­cally, as peo­ple liv­ing under the power of Christ, we have it in us to live free of sin.

Now, hav­ing said all that, I will admit that I’ve never met any­one who is liv­ing sin­lessly since they turned their life over to Christ. Of course, I guess there’s no way to know, because if some­one was boast­ing about it, they would likely be work­ing through the sin of pride! If you’re like me, you strug­gle with sin. There are days that you are able to fully give your­self over to Christ, and days when it’s a lit­tle more of a challenge.

To me, that’s the beauty of the spir­i­tual jour­ney. Every day, I get to mature a lit­tle more. I get to grow a lit­tle stronger in my faith. When I screw up and sin, I learn from it. Why did I com­mit that par­tic­u­lar sin? Are there ways I can grow so that I don’t fall into that same trap in the future? Each day, each month, each year, I learn and dis­cover more about myself and more about how God calls me to live. And the amaz­ing part is that I can learn all of this from the safety of the Cross.

Don’t beat your­self up when you sin. Rec­og­nize it. Con­fess it to God. Repent of it. Move on. But don’t buy into the lie that you were help­less and had no choice in the matter.

My prayer: Lord, the idea of liv­ing a life in which I no longer sin seems unat­tain­able. And yet, it also offers hope. What if tomor­row I could move a lit­tle fur­ther down the path? It gives me some­thing to aim for. I don’t strive to live with­out sin so that you will accept me. You’ve already done that. I strive to live today with­out sin because I want to hon­our you with my life. I want to cel­e­brate what you’ve already done for me. And so, today begins with this sim­ple prayer. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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