Cease to exist

The longer I live my life as a follower of Christ and the more I read the Word of God and the more I spend time with and am friends with other "followers" of Christ, I see a lot of things that don't make sense to me.

That having been said I want to keep my blog short today (praise God). I read something this morning that I don't think a lot of followers of Christ realize or take and own as their own. 1 Peter 2:24 says this "He (Jesus) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed."

I just want to point out one thing, that word that Peter used "die", he said we (who are in Christ) did that to our sin. The word die means to cease to exist. You (if you are in Christ) have ceased to exist to sin, it no longer has a hold on you, because you are dead to it and are now alive to doing what is right because of Jesus.

So why do sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many people who "follow Christ" still live in and/or give into their sin.

Listen to me my friend, my loved one, you who are reading these words. If you are in Christ, you have asked Jesus to be apart of your life....sin does not have a hold on you...so STOP GIVING INTO IT!!!!!!! You have ceased to exist to your sin, so start living and doing what is right!!!!!!!

Peter said that Jesus bore our sin, so when we continue to sin even after we have given our lives to him it is like spitting on his sacrifice or slapping him in the face while he hangs on the cross for you!!

Yes, you are a human so you will struggle with sin because (unfortunately) it is a part of our human nature, but you don't have to give into it. You have freedom in Christ to overcome it. Take hold of that freedom.

I normally like to add some kind of practical stuff here at the end but this my friend is something you need to figure for yourself. What have I (you) been doing lately that is sinful? What attitude or action have I been giving into that goes against what God says in his Word?

Until we decide in ourselves to cease to exist to the sinful habits, hurts and hangup that we struggle with we CANNOT be effective disciples of Jesus.

may our LORD be with you
Josh