8.19.2006

How do you escape sin?

How do you escape sin, when it pursues you at every turn?
You run and run and think you've managed to lose it, and then it catches your heal and sends you plummeting face first.
It catches you by surprise when you least expect it, and leaves you with your face in the mud and your hands bloody from the fall.
How do you flee from sin?
How do you put it to death?
How do you set your mind on things above, when sin has sunk it's claws into your flesh and is gleefully dragging you back down?
How do you call on Christ's name, and the power that lies there waiting for you to claim it?
How?
How do you keep from falling?
We live by grace, and are freed from sin. Ultimately. But the consequences we live with.
How do you free yourself from your self?
How do you free yourself from your own mind?
How do you escape sin?
Please. Tell me how.

Romans 4:7-8
Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man and woman whose sin the Lord will never count against them.

Blessed am I.

Romans 6:6-14
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Romans 7:14 - 8: 16
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the memebers of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation - but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons and daughters of God. For you did not recieve a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you recieved the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

Amen.

3 comments:

Hiram said...

amen indeed. what a gorgeous reality. was that all from memory? I still haven't got to chapter 6, but working on it...

Hiram said...

and i don't have an answer for your question. it's in there somewhere... but i wonder if it isn't just that the more we dwell in the truth, the more we begin to conform to it, so that temptation is further and further from our real desires... still a lot in those chapters i'm trying to chew on.

Whitfield said...

no. not from memory, but i'm working on it. :) it's been a long time since i've worked on memorizing scripture. a lot of verses i've memorized simply because i've read them so many times. but i really want to commit these to memory, and it's going to take more effort than simply reading them over and over. i've been realizing how important *branding* them to my brain and heart is... then if i'm ever without my bible, it's there. when i'm walking down the street or hiking on a trail it's there. when i wake up and when i lay down, it's there. when temptation confronts me, it's there, and God's Word is stronger. thanks for your encouragement hiram. :) and i don't think there is an EXACT answer to my question... it's a question to struggle with, and a question to bring before the Lord. and i think i has a lot to do with dwelling in the truth... the more we conform to the likeness of God's Son, the more our 'old selves will pass away'.
grins i think we'll be chewing on scripture our entire lives. but how sweet it is! :D