Me, Myself and I…

 For he who has died has been freed from sin.—Romans 6:7

Beloved…reading Romans 6:7 this morning brought tears to my eyes.  I am so very sick of “me” and all of her self-involved cohorts…call them “myself and I”.  What a gift the Lord has given us in setting us free from the bondage of sin.  What a gift that I don’t have to sin by thinking on “me” and whatever it is that “me” isn’t happy about at the moment. 

Someone who has died cannot come back and sin.  Dead men don’t sin.  According to what I read and understood, the tense of the expression has been freed “indicates a past action that has a continuing effect—we have been freed from sin and will continue to be freed.” We are not yet sinless, but sin no longer has power over us. We are not sinless but we sin less. 😀

I am dead!  I no longer have to think about me or care about me. That is now God’s job…not mine. I have been crucified with my Jesus.  It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me.  Thinking on me, myself and I only increases my sin and brings me anxiety, fear, and every kind of drama and trouble. Thinking on Christ and abiding in the truth of His word, however, produces the fruit of His Spirit in my life, with peace being the fruit I desire most often. It is so simple and yet so difficult. Paul expresses it perfectly in the following chapter of Romans.

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.—Romans 7:21-25

 Father…

You will keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on You,

Because he trusts in You.

Trust in the LORD forever,

For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength.—Isaiah 26:3-4

How much sin and angst would I avoid if my heart truly obeyed these two verses.  If my every thought was of You and not of me.  If I truly remembered that “I” was dead and that it was You, not me, who lives in “me”. Oh, that You would bring every one of my vain and useless thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Your Son. I have been raised with Him. Help “me” to seek and set my mind on those things which are above, where my Jesus is sitting at Your right hand.  

“I” have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer “I” who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.—Galatians 6:20 (emphasis mine)

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

12 So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10, ESV)