(no subject)

[acresofhope]

Romans 6:1-14, emphasis mine

What shall we say the? Are we to continue in sin so that grace my increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk 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, know this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be 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 lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are no under law but under grace.

I spent nearly all of yesterday afternoon on into the night listening to John Piper preach on this passage. All verses are important for Christ followers, but the bolded ones are those that stick out to me.

I've been acting like a slave girl, but I'M NOT. I acted that way because I believed the lie that I was. I believed that lie because I haven't had my nose in the Bible. I don't have to do it every waking second, but I hadn't been at all. I barely prayed, and at one point, I think I even stopped listening for His voice during the day.

In my heart, I know who I am. I know I love hearing His voice, I know I love finding Him in unexpected places, I know I love movies like The Lion King because of Him, I know I could sing songs to Him all day if you'd let me. I don't care if anyone believes that, because I know that's who I am at the core of my being. I just have to watch myself and not become prideful, so that I live from the core of my being instead of from my body, my skin. I am dead to sin. Or as John Piper likes to say, "Dead people don't sin!"

I have much more to say, but I need a shower.