First Step Towards Being Dead in Christ

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First Step Towards Being Dead in Christ

April 17, 2020 by Admin

Scripture reading: Romans 6:10-13

The beginning of every spiritual achievement is founded in FAITH. From the depths of our sin-prone estate we look to the dizzy heights of Christ-like achievements like being “dead in Christ,” and some of us feel a deep kind of despair in that such an achievement is humanly unattainable. Humanly, yes, but IN CHRIST we can make it.

The first question therefore is how do I do it? The answer is loud and clear in the above passage in Romans 6 – by faith reckon it so. This is not some kind of mental or metaphysical exercise of the will, but a God given ability to believe God. The reckoning of the death of Jesus Christ to be my death can only be brought about by the knowledge of His life being my life, and the sure faith that the life of Christ in me will kill the Adamic life, which is ever present in the form of sin within my members.

One of the greatest signs of the life of Christ in me is the fact that I can see the Adamic nature within my own members.

There was a day in my youth when I went to God with the feeling that I thought I was free from all sin. But He said to me that I should sanctify myself. Naturally I asked Him how, and He told me to watch my members and keep them free from sin. The first few hours were disastrous…. I had sinned with my feet, my ears, my mind, my mouth, and my eyes – there was lusting, idleness, carnal mind, prying ears, and evil speaking. It was quite a shock for someone who thought he was holy. Only the Holy Ghost can reveal one’s sin to himself. The difference between God revealing sin, and the devil doing it, is that when God reveals sin it blesses the believer, the motive being to lift him up. When the devil does it, it is to cast down and deride.

If therefore, we are to reckon ourselves dead, we need first to know that we are not dead (dead to sin), but that we desire to be, and that this is attainable through the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

If we believe that we are joined to Jesus Christ by His death, and that His death is the death of the carnal man within us, then our reckoning this to be so will create within us the death to sin which we desire.

This is the first step towards being “dead in Christ”. In our next devotional we will deal with the second step that follows.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1984)

Thought for today: Even though being “dead in Christ” is humanly unattainable, it is reachable IN CHRIST by faith.