A big bluff

I have been amazed by him for a long time, so I finally asked a friend of mine how he overcame such great sin in his life---and more than overcame, becoming a person with as pure a heart as it used to be crooked. He had an answer for me. He told me that for many years, even as a Christian, he used to think that he was more or less helpless before his sinful urges. (His was a heroin addiction, with all the deceit and other baggage that accompanies that lifestyle.) He believed that the best he could hope to do was a vicious circle of succumb and repent.

Then the Lord put him through a painful process in which he, for the first time, truly understood the meaning of Paul's exhortation: "You also must consider [or "reckon"] yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). In a fairly epiphanic way, my friend grasped the fact that sin did not have to have dominion over him (v.14). The grace was there in Christ to say "no" to temptation (Titus 2:12). (For my part, I remembered 1 Peter 4:1, that the person who has suffered in the body is done with sin.)

Of course, sin will still try to convince you, after your conversion, that nothing has really changed, that you are still the weak and pitiful slave to him that you always were. But it's a big bluff. And we need to call his bluff and to act on the grace that's already present and sufficient (2 Peter 1:3). It is a very serious matter what we "consider" and "reckon" about ourselves. It is imperative that we operate out of the truth about who we are now: If we're slaves to anyone now, we're "slaves to God" and "the fruit you get leads to sanctification" (Romans 6:22).

Wouldn't it be the most pathetic thing if a man drove a beautiful new Ferrari at 40 miles per hour all his life because he "reckoned" that's as fast as it could possibly go? We have the Holy Spirit under the hood. A lot more "overcoming" is possible to us than many of us have believed. That's why Jesus commends seven times in Revelation 2 and 3 the churches who believe they can "overcome" their sins, and do so.

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