Read Romans 6:1-14

If you want to stop a bad habit, experts agree that you should replace it with a good one. Simply deciding to stop eating unhealthy foods or to stop procrastinating online is rarely enough; you need a plan to start eating healthier food or a process to motivate you to be more productive at work.

A similar spiritual principle is at work in our identity in Christ. For the next week we’re going to examine an essential element of who we are as followers of Jesus: alive! We’ll study what it means to be alive in Christ and the implications of this life. Our passage today describes how we have moved from death to life.

The apostle Paul includes some of his most emphatic declarations in this chapter. It seems some in the church in Rome had argued that since God responded to sin by offering grace, Christians should persist in sin in order to receive more grace. This argument completely misses the point of our identity in Christ, however. Just as Jesus died and was resurrected to a glorious life, so too we have died to sin and been baptized into a new life that is able to please God (vv. 2–7).

Jesus defeated the power of sin and death through His death and resurrection. Therefore, if we are in Christ, we are free from the power of sin and death. Our life in Christ is completely incommensurate with a life characterized by sin. Sin is no longer our master; we have the power of God to resist sinful desires, choosing to live in a way that brings glory to God.

This move from death to life doesn’t happen as a result of our own willpower. It is God’s work in us. We respond by offering our lives to the Lord.

APPLY THE WORD

We are not freed from the power of sin and left to flail about alone. God’s Spirit indwells and empowers us to replace habits and desires of sin with the habits and desires of life in Christ. Ponder how you can make an intentional decision to use “your mortal body” as an “instrument of righteousness” that pleases God (vv. 12–13).

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