“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” – Romans 8:10

If you believe in Jesus, embracing His Lordship over your life, then you are in Him and He is in you, and that changes everything! Even when your outward physical situation is grim and deteriorating, your inward situation is gloriously renewed and alive! Though you will die, you will live forever.

The first portion of Romans 8 explores some of the most dramatic aspects of the change that sweeps over us when Christ comes to live within us:

– Because Christ is in us, His perfect righteousness is ours and the requirements of God’s law have been fulfilled (verses 3-4).

– Because Christ is in us, God no longer sees our sin and failures, He see Christ’s perfection (verse 1). There is no longer condemnation for our ugly past. God doesn’t hold that against us and we shouldn’t either.

– Because Christ is in us, our sin no longer defines us or controls us (verse 2).

– Because Christ is in us, we have new desires, hopes, and passions (verse 5). We’re able to set our minds on the things of God rather than merely focusing on the things of this world and the appetites of our bodies.

– Because Christ is in us, we experience genuine and eternal life (verse 111) and peace with God (verse 6).

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
– Hosea 6:6

God’s desire isn’t for empty rituals or mindless rule following. If our hearts, minds, and souls aren’t in something, it doesn’t honor God and He doesn’t appreciate it! God desires a genuine relationship with us. He wants our hearts to be filled with love and faithfulness toward Him, both because He is worthy of that and because that’s what’s ultimately most joyously fulfilling for us. God lovingly made us in His image precisely to be in relationship with Him and neither He nor we should be satisfied with anything less!

Nonetheless, we’ve messed that up, time and again. We mess it up through sin, those acts and attitudes of rebellion against His Lordship that separate us from relationship with the perfect, holy, and divine. God overcame our sin through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. Christ lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and rose from the dead to reconcile us to God. Christ died and rose to restore that relationship we messed by.

However, we’ve often messed THAT up by reducing our relationship to empty rituals and legalistic rule-following that isn’t grounded in a genuine love for God, a desire to glorify Him, and a hunger to worship and know Him more fully. Offerings and observances that usually express the joy and love of relationship becomes an empty caricature in that case. God desires our hearts and minds to be engaged with Him. We’re called to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, not just our physical strength and presence.

As you relate to God and do what you do in your spiritual life, is it done out of love, faithfulness, respect, and a desire to know God more fully? If not, seek God earnestly, desiring to know Him better and to fall more deeply in love with Him.

“Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” – Romans 7:4

If you’re a believer in Jesus, this verse is about you! We seldom think in these terms, but we must. As Christians, we have died to the law. We have been set free not only from the power of sin, but also from the power of legalism. Blind rule-following cannot and will not save us. Rituals and habits will not save us. They may have value, but not the kind that saves. Only God’s grace saves us through faith in Christ.

However, that doesn’t mean we’ve been freed from sin and its consequences just to do whatever we feel like. Not at all! If Christ has saved you, then He is your Lord. He is and must be the ultimate authority over every single aspect of your life, public and private. He is a gracious, kind, and merciful Lord, but His authority is, and must be, absolute.

Your guilt has been forgiven, your shame washed away, your sins forgotten for a purpose. Not to jump back into the mess Christ pulled you out of, but to bear fruit for God. We are to bear the fruit of changed and holy lives that increasingly reveal love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We are to bear the fruit of making disciples: introducing people to Jesus and helping them grow and mature as His followers. We are to bear the fruit of God’s Kingdom, advancing the gospel message, values, causes, and concerns of God’s Kingdom.

You have been raised to life in Christ, but not to waste that life in pursuit of temporary trivialities and pitiful pleasures, but to live a life of great value, significance, and glory to God!

“Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” – Romans 6:13

Things change when we’re saved by God’s grace, or they should! When we believe in Christ, our sins are completely forgiven and we’re set free from guilt, shame, and the relentless power of sin over our lives. We don’t earn this, we don’t deserve it, and it certainly isn’t because we’re “good people”.

However, once Christ has set you free from these things, you need to live free! Living free in Christ doesn’t mean doing whatever you want and it certainly doesn’t mean continuing the very same sinful things for which you were forgiven. Living free in Christ means seeking to devote your life to God and His work in the world. Once you become a follower of Jesus, you’re called to actively resist those sins and temptations that try to call you back to your former patterns and habits of life.

Christ has made you holy – now He calls you to live holy and devoted to Him! Acceptance of Christ is no casual matter, it’s a call to practice a complete life change that reflects the complete life change Christ accomplished for you on the cross. Christian, are you using your body for righteousness or unrighteousness? Are you fighting back against the sins and temptations that you may yet enjoy, excuse, or indulge, but which Christ has called you to nail to His cross?

“So that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 5:21

Mankind’s fall into sin ushered in all the death that surrounds us in this world. The wages of sin is death and the corrupting effects of sin bring about the constant onslaught of horror and decay. However, there’s good news! There’s hope for this fallen world plagued by death!

God offers restoration, reconciliation, and healing from unrighteous sin and the death that accompanies it! God offers grace – a wondrous and precious gift, something which cannot be earned and is never deserved. Grace, beautiful grace, that triumphs over the power of sin and death!

God graciously declares us to be righteous when we believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. When we believe, God is kind enough to credit Christ’s perfect, pure righteousness to us. Though we are sinners, in Christ, we become saints. We are made right with God, declared “not guilty”. This isn’t because we’re special, more deserving, or in any way worthy. It’s only because God is gracious.

Christ in His love gave His life for us on the cross. There He suffered and died to establish a new covenant of grace in His blood. Now our relationship with God is based on His grace, rather than our limited ability to follow rules and laws. On the cross, Christ paid the penalty for our sins and through His death, made possible our eternal life by grace through faith in Him.

For all those who believe in Christ, His righteousness is ours and God’s grace reigns in our lives. We must never forget how and why we’ve been saved – by God’s grace and what Christ did for us, not as a result of anything we’ve done. May that grace fill and reign in our lives! May grace be the joy and overriding quality of our relationship with God and with every person we encounter each day. Let grace reign in your life!