On Sunday, I gave a prescription to our church body to help us overcome sin and obey the law of God. I didn’t have time to point to the specific scriptures in Romans 3-7 where these truths are found. Here’s the scripture support.
Rx: Consider (reckon, count to be true about you!) 3x daily for 7 days.
“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
My Identity and Ability in Christ…
1. I have been made right with God. “[We] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:24-25a).
2. I am justified by grace through faith. “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:5).
3. I have been forgiven of all of my sins – past, present, and future “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin” (Romans 4:7-8).
4. I have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ. “[Abraham’s] faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.’ But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord “(Romans 4:22b-24).
5. I have peace with God. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
6. I can hope in God. “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).
7. I have died to sin. “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6).
8. I have been raised to walk in newness of life. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:8).
9. I can present my members as instruments of righteousness. “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).
10. I have been released from the law – from having to do more and from having to try harder to please God. “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).
11. Even though I still struggle with sin, I can now seek to serve God and others in the new way of the Spirit. “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6).
Consider these truths 3x a day for 7 days and then ask yourself, Am I better, worse, or about the same when it comes to obeying the law of God?
