Stop Living In Sin

Focus: Romans 6:2 KJV - God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

When a person accepts Christ, there is a fundamental identity shift: he becomes dead to sin. Just as a dead body is completely unresponsive to physical stimuli, a believer's old, sinful nature has been legally and spiritually put to death with Christ. Because of this radical transformation, it is a spiritual contradiction for a Christian to continue living a lifestyle of deliberate, ongoing sin. We cannot actively live in an environment that we have died to.

Before meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus was the chief publican (tax collector) in Jericho. In his culture, this meant his entire life revolved around extortion, greed, and financial corruption. He was very wealthy, but his wealth was built entirely on cheating his own countrymen. He was fully "alive to sin." When Jesus called Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree and entered his home, salvation entered Zacchaeus's heart. He didn't just receive a theological lesson; he experienced an instantaneous, identity-shifting spiritual rebirth. His immediate actions proved he was suddenly dead to his old lifestyle. He stood up and declared: "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.”

Zacchaeus could not live any longer in sin when it came to his greed. The old, corrupt tax collector died that day in Jericho, and a new, righteous man stood up in his place. When we truly encounter the grace of Jesus, it doesn't give us a license to keep sinning, it completely kills the desire to live the way we used to. Let us therefore decide where we truly want to belong: if we be dead to sin, let us abstain fully from it. Our romanticising sin is a complete abnormality and therefore unacceptable to God.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I thank you for the grace I have in the Lord Jesus Christ to die to sin and be alive to righteousness in Him. The grace to remain dead to sin and not to resurrect it in my life, please continue to bestow on me. Help me never to return to my vomit again. Let the righteousness of Christ sustain me through life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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