March 2021

31/03/2021

Mat 23 v 25-39; Rom 6 v 1-14; Ps 55 v 1-23; Num 18 v 1-20 v 29
Freedom reigns in Christ

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it” (Rom 6 v 1-2)

Jesus, who had no sin, died a brutal death and experienced the most excruciating pain during the period leading up to His crucifixion. He sacrificed His own life so that the will of God may be accomplished.

“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for ALL” (vers 10), so that we may overcome and be dead to sin but alive to God.

Please take the time to watch this video to get an understanding of His suffering:

“For he [referring to us] who has died is freed from sin” (vers 7)

How could we who have buried the old nature through repentance and baptism, continue to allow sin to reign in us?

People who have not yet come to the knowledge of the truth and are still caught up in their sinful nature, tend to think that they are free and those who follow Christ are in bondage, when it is actually the other way around.

A simple search online for the meaning of “freedom” reveals the following:

Definition of “freedom”
The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
Oxford dictionary

Wikipedia explains that;
Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is “free” if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present

“For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (vers 14)

Man has the freedom to choose, whether that entails living a life in bondage to the lusts of the flesh or a life dedicated to the One who gave us a new life through His death and resurrection.

The law convicts and condemns us and points out our sinful nature and inability to do good. For this reason Christ fulfilled the law and yet set a higher standard that we still cannot meet on our own.

Have you tried not too sin lately and then soon realised it is only by the grace of God that when you do commit a sinful act, which is inevitable, depending on your definition of sin, of course, you are convicted and feel disappointed, guilty and dirty and most of all, separated from God? Well this is the nature of sin.
How do we then overcome the bondage of sin? The answer is three-fold:

1. We need to take up our cross, then
2. We ought to die with Christ, through dying to self, and
3. We should rise with Him through baptism in newness of life

“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection” (vers 5).

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB, Life Application Study Bible, unless stated otherwise. Copyright by “The Lockman Foundation“