Too many of us allow our past curb the potential we have in our future. I mean so what if your past is checkered with past mistakes, failures, hurts, and pains? I’ve made plenty of mistakes and have a long list of failures to my name, but that doesn’t mean my future is determined because of it. Am I discounting my past? Not at all. What I am saying is that the past shouldn’t dictate what or how you should live in the future because ultimately I want my future to reflect the man God is making me to be.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
Romans 6:1-7 ESV
There are three important life lessons and perspectives from these verses that we need to apply in our hearts as Christ followers to live as we were intended to live:
1. Don’t excuse any of your sins
A sin is a sin, is a sin. What is a “sin”? A sin is simply rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, not being or doing what he requires in his law.1 What that means is that the type of sin doesn’t matter. Like there is no difference between murdering or lying in the eyes of God because both violate how He intended us to be. As a result, regardless of the type of sin, death and disintegration is the outcome. So don’t excuse any of your sins because the type and size do not matter, the end result is always death in sin. Instead of excusing your sins, change your mindset to reject sin in your life. That’s what we’ve been cleansed for. To live a like Jesus. Set free from sin.
Secondly, having said that we cannot excuse our sins, and accept them as they are, and our previous sins having died with Christ when we accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, then:
2. Allow your previous sins to stay dead in your life
We don’t do this part well. We love to bring up the past. Our past grievances, our past failures, our past hurts, pains, sufferings. Understand Jesus died for your past everythings, sins included. You’ve been baptized into the same death when you stepped up in faith to be baptized with water. Allow those sins that were buried in the tomb with Jesus stay buried.
How do you do that? Simple:
- Don’t dwell on what-ifs in your mind
- Don’t engage in the activities and patterns that allowed for sin to fester in your past
- Do talk about your past as a way to be transparent about who you were and who you are becoming
- Do reflect on your past thinking and behavior to identify the causes of your sins
- Do permit yourself to be imperfect and in need of Jesus
Last thing we need to take away from this passage is this:
Be free in new life
This is something we have to practice. The rules that once governed your decision making no longer applies to your life. You are free from guilt. You are free from punishment. You have a clean slate. So what do you do with that? I would hope you do what glorifies God, the Father, for giving you a new life — to have an active relationship with him. That’s what God wants for you. To be free to pursue God and see how your Father in heaven welcomes you into his arms and prepares for you things in this life and in the next that will prove his love for you.
Let me challenge you, in your freedom, to do the following with your new life of faith:
- Understand how God created you (what are your skillsets, what are your passions)
- Seek how you can glorify God with your skillsets and passions (think about where you see yourself making the biggest difference in the world around you)
- Go live boldly by acting on your skillsets and passions
Notes:
- https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/new-city-catechism/what-is-sin/?childrens_mode=true
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