Read Romans 6:1-23

Do you ever look back on your life with gratitude that God didn’t give up on you? Over the last 15 years of my life, there were many different times where God maybe should have given up on me. There are many things that God has freed me from since that time and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Sin is something that 100% characterized most of my teenage years. Putting on the mask of “Pastor’s kid” on Sunday allowed me to hide a lot of darkness that was a part of my soul. I shamefully look back on the people I hurt through my raging anger and manipulation. I look back on the status of my heart and it was terrible. Sin was a dark plague in my life that had its ugly hands suffocating me. I was going nowhere quick.

And then God intervened.

After I graduated high school, I finally opened my heart up to God. I was immediately drawn to the 6^th chapter of Romans with all of the talk about sin and being a slave to it and no longer needing to live under it. There are so many verses that I wish to highlight in this chapter but don’t have the space to do so.

I feel like verse 11 sums up the entire chapter when it says:

“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

This verse sums up the last 15 years of my life and I would consider it to be my life verse. Without Jesus, we are dead to sin, we are slaves to it. I love how Paul questions why people would voluntarily live under the reign on sin in their lives when they have already been freed from it. With Jesus in our hearts, when we sin, we are choosing to live under sin’s control in our lives.

Doesn’t make sense does it?

The healing process for me is 8 years in the making and, while I still fall back into the old way of living on occasion, I pray that I would never allow it to reign in my life again. Sin is something that will never be wiped away from our lives until Jesus comes back. However, it remains a battle and it is one that I will continue to fight!

As you look inside your own heart, are you a slave to sin? What area of our life can you just not seem to give up completely to the Lord? I challenge you to read over Romans 6 and allow the many truths to jump off the page to you. Give the Holy Spirit complete access to your heart and mind. What do you need to be healed from? How are you going to choose to live outside of the reign on sin in your life?

Jake Lawson