Dead Man Living

Temptation is very compelling, but only up to a point. The point at which it no longer has any power is death. Try as you may, one simply cannot tempt a corpse. No amount of wealth, power or fame can turn the head of one who is dead. Sultery women can't catch his eye, drug dealers can't wet his appetite and not even "death by chocolate cake" appeals to him - a corpse can't be tempted.

This was the apostle Paul's argument to those rejected grace suggesting that it would give people a license to sin. Paul's response was very clear, "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Rom  6:1, 2).  He went on in chapter six to argue that we have died and were buried in death with Christ, freeing us from the power of sin.

That is not to say that we can never be tempted or that we never can sin. It is to say that the power to overcome both is in our dying to self and being raised up with Christ. The closer I walk with Jesus, the less I am tempted to do wrong. For me to sin at all requires that I allow the old self to be resurrected. When I am dead to self, allowing Christ to live in me as Paul explains in Galatians 2:20, I am not under the power of temptation and sin but rather the Spirit of Christ.

I wish I could say the old me died completely and I now live completely under the control of the Spirit, but that simply is not the case. The old man is resurrected from time to time. But I can say that it takes more to raise him up and less to let him die as I yield more and more to the presence of Christ's Spirit. While I'm not always successful, I choose daily to no longer live but let Christ live in me. When I bow to His presence, I am dead to temptation and sin.

Jus Sayn.