Welcome to the POG Blog! We began an adventure yesterday at POG into the reality of the new Identity God gives because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The adventure includes embracing the Actions or lifestyle that flows from that new identity! Romans 6 is like a guide book for this adventure. Below are two readings of today’s text. The first is the NIV translation the second is an amazing rendition from The Message version.
Romans 6 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Romans 6 10When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. 12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
I really love how the Message talks about the new way we can now conduct our lives because of our new identity in Christ. “You must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives! Don’t give it the time of day! Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life.”
There is so much power in that perspective! I don’t have to follow the path of the slave driver sin - even though the path is familiar and normal. I get to “pour myself wholeheartedly and full time into God’s way of doing things!”
Now that’s a great way to spend today – to enjoy today!
I get to pour myself into God’s way of doing things!
delton
How does God’s message of a new Identity with new Actions strike you today?