Romans 6:11

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I have been struggling through Romans the past few weeks in an attempt to prepare myself to lead a Bible Study on it at church, but it was a confrontation that happened during my recent trip to Colorado that really has me searching the word for insight.

In summary, I had a man challenge me to consider the possibility that the modern day church has it all wrong and that Jesus actually taught that we need to try to be sin free to follow him. Not to be saved, but to follow after Christ. It did give me pause, and I am trying to weigh the whole Bible in this debate rather than jump to any conclusions based on prior learning and knowledge. Of course, the first verses that came to mind were Christ’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. I have always stumbled a bit over Matthew 5:48 which calls us to be perfect. After giving us a list of ways to stretch our beliefs on what is acceptable behavior to God, Jesus tells us to be perfect. Huh?

Todays verse is quite interesting then, isn’t it. If we are following Christ and have moved into a new life with him, we have died to sin. It doesn’t say we are dying to sin, it says we are to consider ourselves dead to sin. That means it can’t reach us. We can be separate from it. We are not alive to sin, but alive to God who has the power of the universe in His hands. While I am not ready to say that to follow Christ we have to be sinless (I am not even sure that is possible this side of Heaven yet) but what I do know for sure about my own life is that I am not LIVING like I am dead to sin. I do not treat sin as if it has no power over me . . . I am afraid I take it all too lightly most of the time and am in fact quite alive to sin.

Father, forgive me for my cavalier attitude about the sin in my life, especially those sins I feel are “lesser” sins. Forgive my unbelief, forgive my constant worry about tomorrow, forgive my apathy toward non-believers, forgive my hard heart to the widows and orphans, forgive me for not taking every thought captive as you have called me to do. I want to follow you fully . . .show me father how that looks.