Reckon yourselves

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6.10-11

Paul spends a lot of time here in Romans 6-8 dealing with the whole issues of Christians and how we are to deal with sin. He says that same basic truth in a lot of ways. Each of these though have an important instruction that we should not miss.

Here we read that the key to having victory over sin is that we reckon oursleves dead to sin. This is an accounting term. We look over the facts and examine the books and we do the figuring and we recognise that we are dead to sin.

It is this reckoning that reminds us that when we see it is nobody’s fault but our own. We are dead to sin. When we are tempted we need not give in. No temptation has any power unless I empower it but relying on my own strength and ignoring the power of God in my life. The sooner we realise that we have all the power in Christ to defeat sin the sooner we can we can begin to see victory in our lives. My new life is in Christ and He defeated sin and death.

I am not facing that next battle with temptation alone – it has no powers because greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.