I like God because in Christ I have defeated sin (1)

Danny Fourie

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin …  Romans 6:11

The learned word for people, who have a severe fear of spiders, is arachnophobia. It comes from the Greek arachne which means spider and phobos meaning fear. These creatures with their long legs have but on all of us a tickling effect.

Sin defeated? Does this heading sound a bit over confident? Yes, many may say, we have overcome sin in Christ, but we see very little of it. Can I really claim that I am without sin? The book of Romans says I am free from sin and dead for sin. The blood of Christ took away my sin and the cross put an end to the existence of me as a sinner.

What happened to Christ is a fact that we suffered "in him" as well. We were crucified with him. We need not ask God to crucify us too. When Christ was crucified, we were crucified. We are free from sin. And without us having to do anything.

Well good, you say, but in practice it seems very little so. Let us first clarify a misunderstanding. Sin is still here, but the slave who serves it, is dead. Paul speaks of the liberation of a force (sin) that certainly is still there – not a power that does not exist.

The long legged spider still exists, it still lets us feel uneasy seeing it, but it has no power over us. When John in 1 John 5:18 says that a child of God no longer continues to sin, it does not mean that sin is no longer in our lives, and that we no longer will do sinful things. What he says is that sin is no longer characteristic of a life that is born of God.

Prayer: Thank you Lord that I am not a slave of sin anymore. I know sin is lurking like a spider, but it no longer has power over me. Amen