Where Deliverance Begins

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Romans 6:1-2

This is the place where deliverance begins. What this declares is that down at the very deepest level of your life, a fact has taken place from which all deliverance will stem. It means that whether or not you feel like a Christian, you still are a Christian if this has occurred; Christ's death for you, and your death with him, are unchangeable facts, and nothing you do, or don't do, affects them.

This is a truth we greatly need, for until we begin to believe what God says is true about what happened to us when Jesus Christ died, we never will have the confidence to accept the deliverance that he has based upon it. If you once died with him, you are not the same — you never will be the same again. Even though temporarily you do fall into sinful acts which are the same as those you committed before you were a Christian, still you are not the same — you cannot be. You have been transferred, the New Testament says, from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Colossians 1:13). The evil one cannot lay his hands upon you any longer. You are not in bondage; you are a believer and your deliverance rests upon an unchangeable fact.

I was talking with a young man who had been away from church for some time, and I asked him why. He said, I hesitate to come, because when I'm at work I can't seem to live like I ought to. There is so much failure in my life there. I lose my temper and sometimes curse and say things that I shouldn't. This is why I don't want to come to church. I feel like a hypocrite when I do. I said, You know, a hypocrite is someone who acts like something he isn't. When do you act that way? Well, he said, if I came to church after the way I live through the week, I'd be a hypocrite, wouldn't I? I said, Are you a Christian? He said, Yes, I am. All right, I said, if you are a Christian, then when is it that you do not act like one? In church, or at work? Oh, he said, I see what you mean. I'm being a hypocrite at work! Yes, I said, when you come to church, you're being what you really are for perhaps the first time during that week.

It is not hypocritical to come among the people of God in a sense of weakness and even failure. You belong there — that's what Christians are. You may be a hypocrite at work, and if you wish to avoid acting like a hypocrite, apply it there. The point is this: The death of Jesus Christ is an unchangeable fact in your experience if you have received him. God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it (1Corinthians 10:13). He will bring you through, if you rest upon the unchangeable fact of what he has already done in your life.

Father, thank you that my true identity is found in the fact that I have died with Christ. Help me to believe that.