I hope your week went well with not too much stress or worry! Just remember, this is only a temporary dwelling place for us. Trust in the Lord! He's got this!
This week, we're going to stay in Romans and take a look at something that had me confused for the longest time which Yehovah gave me clarity on recently. Have you heard of being dead to sin? It's something that never really made sense to me before, and to go along with it verse 8 of Romans 6 that talks about being dead with Christ.
So what does being dead to sin mean? Well, lets take a look at the opposite of dead to answer this question. If you take a look at Acts 10:42, it talks about Jesus being ordained by God to be the Judge of the "quick" and dead. This of course encompasses everyone who ever was born on the earth, since the word "quick" is used to mean living. It's interesting that they translated the Greek zao to "quick" for this and a couple other verses, because in the majority of other uses it's translated to some form of the word "live."
What's more interesting is the first use of this word is in Matthew 4:4. This verse is the part of the temptation of Christ where Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, saying "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." As you look into the Greek of Matthew 4:4, you find that where the word "by" is translated, the Greek word epi was used. This word is actually better translated to "on" rather than by. Just think of the word "epidermis." This is the visible part of your skin, that's "on" top of the two other layers of skin. It's not "by" the other layers, or even "in" the other layers (which is what epi is translated to in Revelation 14:9 for the mark of the beast).
What this says to me is Jesus emphasized that we are not to live just on bread, but on God's Word. And not just His Word, but the Words He actually spoke. And from what I recall, there's only a select few times God has actually spoken to man. One of those being to give us His commandments.
But what does it mean to be living? Are you living if you just sit in a chair or lay in bed all day? I guess in the strictest sense of the word you are, but most people would agree that's not a life, so you're not truly living. To be living is to be inspired, excited, and motivated to do things in life. What inspires, excites and motivates you?
This is what was made clear to me about Romans 6. When you are dead to sin, you are not inspired, excited, or motivated by sin. You no longer have interest in it. Your love and trust in God gives you the excitement, inspiration and motivation. In fact, once you have that, everything pales in comparison and you actually get sad, disappointed and disgusted when you see sin in the world. You can identify when things of the world are designed and intended to inspire sin.
How do we become dead to sin? Well it's important to understand that this is an inward death, not an outward action. What I mean by that is you can stop yourself from committing sinful acts all day, but if you are committing them in your heart you might as well have committed them outright. Remember 1 Samuel 16:7. Yehovah looks upon our heart, not on our outward appearance. This is where the true repentance I talked about a couple weeks ago comes in.
This is also where our death with Christ comes in (Romans 6:8). In Mark 10:21, Jesus tells the rich man to sell everything, take up the cross, and follow Him. Here, He foreshadows what He was chosen for, which completely went over the heads of everyone present (including the disciples!). But it tells us when we truly follow Him, we take up that cross He bore (which is our sins) and when we have that inward death to sin, that transformation of character, that spiritual regeneration, our flesh has joined Him on that cross and we are dead with Him (Romans 6:3-11).
When you let God reign in your heart, you prevent sin from reigning. And if sin doesn't reign, you are no longer one of its subjects to obey its lusts (Romans 6:12).
I hope you have a wonderful week! Shabbat Shalom and God bless you!
-Sara Gene and Rob
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