Our Bad Attitudes

“So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus…Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” Romans 6:11, 14.

When my dad was walking the journey of cancer I’ll never forget how despair was turned into delight when it went into remission.  We obviously would have loved to hear the word cured but remission for a terminal disease is as close as you can snuggle up to cured.  There was great peace in knowing that cancer was no longing reigning throughout his body.  There was always the thought of its return but we just enjoyed each day while it wasn’t active.

When considering our sinful nature I feel there is a great analogy with cancer.  We are born with a sinful nature which reigns within us until we accept Christ into our lives and receive salvation.  It is at that point when our treatment begins to kill off the toxins of sin and replace them with the righteousness of Christ.  Through sanctification the sinful nature with which we were born works its way to the surface transforming us into the likeness of Christ.  However, sometimes circumstances cause us to allow our sin of bad attitudes to come out of remission.  We face circumstances in our lives that dominate our minds and hearts.  We feel rejected…betrayed… alienated…victimized.  We determine that no one’s challenges are as challenging as what we have been asked to endure.  We say ‘I am just this way…it is just who I am…this is just how my life is going to be.’  Wayne Grudem describes what these sins of attitude basically communicate once we are Christians.  ‘To say this is to say that sin has gained dominion.  It is to allow sin to reign in our bodies.  It is to admit defeat.  It is to deny the truth of Scripture.’

And we are supposed to be living alive in God through Christ?  When we are stuck in the emotions of our circumstances we have turned off the cancer treatment and paved the way for our sin to come out of remission.  We must continuously focus on the Christ-drip of transformation and renewal to protect ourselves from living a spiritual life of dead man walking.

Christ didn’t die for us to only have life in the eternal…He died for us to be alive in Him in this life regardless of our circumstances.

So consider yourself alive and start living again!