“The triumph of the human spirit” boils down to clinging to life in this world—an insistence in experiencing all life has to offer. Yet termination confronts us all. Shouldn’t we be preparing for it—not just the suffering of old age, but death itself? When the plug is inevitably pulled, do we simply cease to exist or do we live on into eternity? As the climax of life, death ushers in a whole new set of experiences.

     Believers wrestle with this issue as well. As followers of Christ, we are constantly being drawn away to the abundance this world has to offer. Our enemy cleverly uses this ploy, tempting us to believe that there is ultimately something here which will fulfill our human needs. The Bible offers a solution to this dilemma, if indeed we will heed it—if we will believe God as opposed to what our natural senses tell us.

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“Slavery” is pertinent to a life unavoidably ending in death. Those who are still young are least aware of what life ultimately holds. They think they have time! Watching her twenty-year-old grandchildren, my wife’s 99-year-old mother (daily undergoing the rigors of old age) uttered: “somebody needs to tell them!”

Tell them? Really? Oblivious, they would merely have brushed it off as an unpleasant thought—a remote and distant reality, “I know, but that’s a long way off. Why worry about it now?” And I can see their point. Life can be a wonderful thing. The chance to live all that can be experienced—to be able to see, hear, feel, taste and smell the feast that is set before us offers a sensual distraction most live their lives for. It’s what happiness seems to be all about. Is it any wonder that the notion of God and a life hereafter get shoved into the background?

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People possess the opportunity of achieving astounding success. And we tend to pin our hopes on becoming more like them, desiring to experience the self-worth we instinctively know they must possess. We’re constantly presented with a eulogy of these lives, “So and so lived to a ripe old age, here is a list of his or her achievements. What a life of honor; what a life well-lived!”

     At the risk of being a bit morbid, now in my later years I’m much less enamored with the prospects of life on this earth, no matter how fulfilling and rewarding it might appear to be. Life without Christ boils down to fear. In portraying the ultimate freedom of the follower of Christ, a life truly well-lived, the Book of Hebrews affirms in verse 2:15: “and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” What we once were in this world, in Christ we no longer are.

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     Life! What a marvelous gift we’ve been given—to live on this earth X number of years with the chance to pursue and achieve our dreams, all the while enjoying the penetrating beauty of this natural world as a backdrop. Now, in practical terms, we do not all share a level playing field. Many, the majority of people, I fear, are born into a world of dismal poverty where opportunity is so limited that they are destined for an existence of mediocrity, largely overlooked, invisible to the likes of us who have been ushered into a life of meaningful prospects.

     Whether silver-spooned or raised a little less glamorously, privileged lives offer a bedrock of promise, where people have been furnished with the capability to advance. This is the hallmark of Western Culture and those who emulate it, a richness not only of material wealth, but also the prospect of longevity, providing us the resources to achieve things more or less unreachable by previous generations.

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It’s sad that so many have been duped by Satan into believing that we must now earn our own way now that we’ve been saved. Think back to your desperately sinful condition when God reached down and pulled you out of that pit. God’s grace was overwhelming, wasn’t it! So how could you think that He might now abandon you just because you continue to struggle with sin in your life?

Good news! God has resolved the issue of your sin—past, present and future. It’s a done deal! Freedom from sin is God’s way of guarantying enduring intimacy with Him. Yet this doesn’t mean that the struggle between the appetites of the flesh and God’s requirements are not going to be a battle for us. This on-going conflict is precisely why the assurance of being freed from sin is so important as we go about living our new life in Christ.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

“If I have truly died to sin, why do I still feel so alive to it?” This really is mysterious! Don’t think you’re alone here. It’s not an uncommon question by any stretch of the imagination. “Just what did happen to me when I became that new creature in Christ? What’s this life all about?” The answer lies in the fact that it’s not about what we do or don’t do. Rather, it’s about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done.

No, this doesn’t relieve us of all personal responsibility. Of course not! It does mean, though, that the foundation for our relationship with God has been laid by Him alone, not by anything we can do in and of ourselves. “Oh, I believe that,” you might say—but do you really? Do you really believe that your relationship with God isn’t somehow rooted in trying to be good?

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

It’s pretty common to think about sin merely as a response by our flesh to some outside stimulus.  “I wanted it, so I did it!” But in reality sin is a symptom of a much more serious disease within. Sin is a barometer of the heart. It’s more than just actions; it’s rooted in our attitudes, intentions and motives. In thinking that sin stems primarily from our physical body, we’re led to treat the symptoms rather than focusing on the true source of the problem.

Sin is a heart problem rooted within the soul, so we need to start there. We know that our soul cannot change until it is influenced by a healthy spirit. And nothing happens until our spirit is first empowered by the life of God. But when it is, the soul, mind and body are all pushed automatically toward God’s purpose. This is the answer to the weakness of the flesh.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

We deserved death for our sins. But Jesus was willing to go to the cross in our place. We generally understand what His sacrifice meant. But Romans 6:6 tells us a whole lot more: “our old self was crucified with Him so that our body of sin might be done away with, that we would no longer be slaves to sin.”

When Paul says that we are freed from sin, he uses a word meaning justified or made righteous. It can literally be translated: “For he who has died is acquitted from sin.” We all know what happens when someone is acquitted in a trial—he’s found not guilty! This is exactly what God did as Jesus took penalty for sin off our shoulders and laid it upon Himself. And because of it, experiencing God’s life consists of something a great deal more than merely being obligated to maintain sinless behavior now that we’re saved.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Romans 6:4 says that baptism symbolizes our burial with Jesus—a sharing in Christ’s death in a way that allows us also to share in His resurrection life. It’s why we can now live life in a brand- new way. When we are born again, we become connected to Jesus in such a way that we are actually joined to Him. And having become united with Him, we now enjoy all the benefits accomplished on the cross—just as if we had suffered the punishment of death ourselves.

The punishment for sin is separation from God—spiritual death. But when Jesus died on that cross, He became the appeasing sacrifice for our sins. He actually stepped in and substituted Himself in our place. Jesus suffered the agony of separation from His Father so that we don’t have to. Baptism is a powerful symbol of that reality—joined to Christ, both in His death and in His resurrection.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

What is sin? I’ve often heard sin defined as missing the mark, as if one were missing a target he is aiming at. Those whose lives are centered on sin not only offend God, but utterly miss the precious gift of His eternal purpose. The Bible says that sin is lawlessness. And It makes perfectly clear what the sins of the flesh are—often warning that those corrupted by a lifestyle of sin have no inheritance in the kingdom of God.

But we see in Scripture conflicting opinions about what causes sin, and thus its remedy. The Jewish leaders viewed sin as being the product of a person’s outward behavior. So they attempted to manage sin through a system of rules which grew more and more burdensome as time went by. Jesus, on the other hand, realized that sin is rooted in man’s heart. God was about to deal with the problem of sin in a whole new way.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself