Power over sin!

Power over sin!

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Corinthians 15:56-57 NLT

Have you ever wondered why it is hard to live and do right by your own power? Have you ever wondered why you struggle so hard to do what is right, even when you know it is the right thing to do? Welcome to the world of the law of sin and death, where death was the natural consequences of sin, which is itself powered by the law. A good example of this is: When man was created, he had everything he needed for life and Godliness. God walked with him daily and gave him control over all he had made. There was authority, dominion and control. All man had to do to retain all these was to avoid the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. He had a choice to make: eat and die OR keep away and live. That singular act of eating the fruit was an act of disobedience (sin) through which death has come to dominate man. Because of sin, man now has a permanent date with death. No wonder the extract for today says sin is the sting that results in death. As long as a man was naturally born, he was born into sin, and so partook of the nature of sin, and of course, death as its natural consequence.

But thank God the story does not end like that. Christ came and with his death and life, paid the price that sin demanded. The consequences of sin was death, as we have already established. Someone had to die to pay that price. Christ was the perfect sacrifice because he had no sin, so the natural consequences of sin had no power over him. He could not remain dead because sin had no hold over him. He stood in our place and paid the price we should have paid for our sin. He took away the sting of sin, which is death, and through his life, given us through life and immortality. Now, my life never truly ends. Painful as it may be to those left alive, physical death for someone who has identified with the death and life of Christ, is a translation from this limited life to limitless life. We are the ones who weep over the death of a loved one, but the dead in Christ have no regrets: life has only just started.

Which one will it be for you? Are you still under the pangs of sin, working towards the certain end of death?  Have you secured your life by identifying with the death and life of the only one who can give victory over both sin and death? The choice is yours; you belong to your choice, and the consequences of your choice are eternal. Eternity is too long a time not to be sure of your eternal destination.