Romans 6:11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 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.
Have you ever found yourself growing angry at someone because he or she was opposing you, getting in your way, or refusing to see something from your perspective? Have you ever given your word, even if informally, that you would do something, then as your circumstances changed, you changed your mind? Oh, don't worry. I am not trying to corner you because I would have to answer yes to these questions as well.
This summer I had three student employees who had made a commitment to a task, who had signed on the dotted line, then inform me, several weeks later, that they no longer wanted to fulfill that commitment. I have been working with students since 1984, and this is the first time this had happened, and it caused m to reflect on others who seemed to find it easy to "change their mind" in relationship to a commitment. I thought of some people recently who had specific jobs or tasks delegated to them who simply chose not to fulfill those responsibilities. They had "excuses," but it boiled down to the fact that it was easier and more pleasant for them to do what they wanted to do than what their job description might require. And these were believers.
As I reflected on all of this, I began to wonder how deeply the believing world has been infiltrated by the philosophy of the world: do what feels good to you regardless of how it influences or affects others. And it also came to me how far we have distanced ourselves from living out our identity as dead to sin and alive to God. I wonder whether we have lost what it even means to be dead to sin and alive to God.
OK - let's start with dead to sin...or dead to man or dead to the old self. It has the idea of no longer being enslaved to sin or controlled by our lusts, our selfish or sinful desires. It's not that we won't ever have them, but we are free to overcome them, free to walk away from those desires. To illustrate, someone said something with which I disagreed, and I was sorely tempted to point out the error in their thinking, even knowing that they would be offended, knowing that I could feel superior knowing I was right, and they might feel put down publicly. My Self would have been satisfied for a moment, but the broken relationship would hurt and cost me.
Catching myself and recognizing this occasion as an opportunity to be alive to Christ means that I shut up. It means that I recognize that indulging in that prideful moment of pointing out the other person's error right then would be only be an exercise in pride, not in love, not in demonstrating the presence of God within, yielding my body, my words and actions to God's use.
I remember as a teenager begging God to show my how He wanted to use me - meaning vocationally. And then at other times in my life as God seemed to be closing one door, I begged Him to show me the next. But the more real issue here is not necessarily God's will vocationally, thought that is important, but God's will with every opening of my mouth, every step of my feet, every action of my hand. Am I all about being an instrument of God or more about satisfying my own desires?
And a final question or thought, do we even talk about this issue with young people? I don't mean preach about it because the bottom line, preaching is fairly ineffective. I mean just sit down and talk about it, in a conversation where we listen to them and share our struggles honestly, a place where we also explain God's desire for us, His plan that we might live a life filled with love and joy and peace. A place where we discuss what it means to be dead to sin and self and alive to Christ, to be His instruments. I fear that we might do one of two things instead: ignore their needs and sinful behaviors because we want their affection or we fear their rejection, OR we point out their sin without love...as Pharisaical judges, feeling good about ourselves that we are different. I wonder what it really means to be "instruments of righteousness to God" in our world today.
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