Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Good morning, dear people.
Would you like to join us this morning in going to the Clackamas County Fair? That’s what we’re up to with Thano, Kaden, and Nicholas. We kind of made a promise to the boys the last time they were here that we would do that today. Their mom delivered them on schedule this morning about 6:45am.
Needless to say, I’m pushing aside a lot of work to do this. Oh well. This kind of activity is important too. Right? Yesterday was an exhausting and challenging one—milling up some big ugly fir logs—pitchy, irregular, and knotty—some knots being over 4”. Not my favorite kind of material. But the lady is attaching nostalgic value to the big old tree. If she has the money, I guess I’ve got the time.
Have a blessed day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
Imagine a man who was notorious in your community as a drunkard and womanizer. He finally dies. There he is on the floor—cold and motionless. Now, set beside him a bottle of Jack Daniels and say, “Here you go, Mack, have a drink.” How would he respond? Nothing. Now have a beautiful suggestively-dressed model walk past him. “Hey, Mack, did you see that?” Nothing. I’d say that’s pretty good evidence to support Paul’s thesis that “anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
To be sure, you will never be absolutely free from sin and its impulses this side of eternity. However you can reduce actual sin to virtually zero by properly managing your brain and body in submission to Christ and His Holy Spirit. How? By understanding that your sin nature has vicariously died with Christ (That’s what the ceremony of Baptism is all about!) and by continually regarding (reckoning, viewing, affirming) yourself as though you were DEAD—DEAD to SIN but ALIVE to GOD. And if I understand correctly how this works, this very discipline actually releases Divine assistance (the Holy Spirit) that allows you to truly achieve what you could not successfully achieve entirely on your own.
This passage from verses 11 through 14 is probably the most practical recipe for Christian victory you will ever find. Let’s read it again.
“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 (religious legalism), but under grace.”
This is extremely GOOD NEWS.