Back on Track

I was going to write this last night, but I went on my baby tirade and didn't want to overwhelm you.

So I'm in the predicament that I have now read two chapters and need to report on them both...and I can't skip one because they are both awesome..........decisions decisions.

Ok, I'll start from Chapter 6 and see how far I get.

Romans 6:2
"We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"

Here's what I love about Paul - he talks like me.  He's wordy and not concise and he makes you read his material over and over trying to get what he's saying.  But then he has these moments of perfection (that part I haven't mastered!).  He goes on and on in chapter 5 about how grace is increased where sin is increased, but he doesn't let you rationalize it out.  He then right away stops you from your train of thought and says "no, that does not mean keep sinning so you can have more grace...but good effort".

I just love the matter-of-factness of the statement.  We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  I feel like he probably wrote "duh" at the end of that and erased it because it wasn't cool to say yet.

I struggle with this process.  Not with the idea of wanting to sin more, but of what it means to not live in sin.   Technically, I have died to sin...but I continue to sin.  I am by no means perfect and anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with me can attest to this...loudly.  The point is Galatians (that's right, I am cross-referencing...I think that means I just graduated!).
Galatians 2:20-21, that is, one of my all-time favorite verses:
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing"

I don't know if this is coming together...probably because I'm still trying to wrap my little brain around it all.  This whole process is one that has baffled me, but if in my salvation I died to myself so that Christ might live in me, then it is the grace of God that covers my sins.  I cannot live in sin, because Christ lives in me and He conquered sin.

I think it means that at the end of the day, I sin when I turn away from the grace offered to me, when I reject the leading of the Spirit, when I ignore Christ's direction in me.  Even still, when I return to the grace freely offered me in my salvation, I've been covered because I've already claimed my eternal life.  Sin does not have a hold on my life because it has been conquered by the One who should consume my being.  It's when I give sin the foothold that I get into trouble.

See, Paul and I talk the same.

Ultimately, the point is that if Christ is living in me, then I have the power residing in my very soul to conquer the temptations that arise every day.  "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace" Romans 6:14.

It becomes a choice, I think.  I have access to grace and strength and resurrecting power...but I am not always willing to tap into that power when I find myself in desperate need of that very thing.  I can choose to offer my body to sin OR I can offer myself to God as an instrument for righteousness....which kind of sounds awesome-er.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." v.23

Grace, strength, resurrecting power, AND eternal life?  Sounds like a pretty sweet deal when pitted against that whole slave to sin and death thing.  And that's the point of the grace thing...my sins are great, but Christ has paid the debt and has consumed my soul with Himself such that I can tap into the awesomeness that is a resurrected Savior.