Day 5 - Reigning in This Life

Rom 5:17For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Continuing in the thought of God’s grace abounding towards us, Paul now talks about the effect of that grace – we reign in life through Jesus.

What does this mean? Well, before we receive God’s salvation through Christ, we are slaves. In the following chapter of Romans, we read about this in some detail (Rom 6:5-14). The fact is that we have the very nature of sin as part of us, and we end up obeying it (sin). So we are its slaves. But our accepting the work of Christ’s death on the cross does away with our sin. Jesus calls this being “born again” because we get a new life or nature – the nature of God. The Apostle Peter puts it this way: “He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2Pet 1:4).

As Christians, we are no longer slaves to sin. This means we can rule over it rather than vice versa. Rather than simply being led around by sin as if we were on a leash, we can make our own choices. And when we choose God’s ways, we reign in life. Sure, we’ll meet difficulties and experience pain, but as we walk by faith, being doers of the Word (James 1:22-25), Much More we overcome the evil and corrupting influences of the world (1Jn 5:4).

But the choice is ours; we can choose to sin (and be bound by it), or we can choose righteousness and experience God’s life, freedom and blessing.

It shouldn’t be a tough choice.

Consider:

If I don’t have to sin, why do I still sin sometimes?

What do I think about having the nature of God in me?