Defeat Lust & Pornography Resurrected
Defeat Lust & Pornography 4 minute read

Crucified with Christ: Overcoming Sin (Part 6)

Last Updated: March 26, 2024

Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.” (John Stott)

Just as Christ died on the cross, so our sin is nailed to it with Him.

Resurrected

Last week we explored Romans 6 and the idea that when Christ died, He died to the power, guilt, and dominion of sin. After rising from the dead, no temptation, no worldly power, and no demonic force could touch Him. He is a part of the new sinless creation.

Through the Spirit we are united with the crucified and risen Jesus. Because we are united with Him, we can live a new life.

Reckon Yourself Dead

If this new life Christ lives in the heavenly realms and is real, and if His Spirit is truly in us, sharing that life with our spirits, then how do we experience and taste of that life? We experience it by faith.

This is not a fools-hope sort of faith, but the kind of faith spoken about in the book of Hebrews: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). In other words, faith is that disposition in our hearts that makes the things we long for seem real to us, that deep conviction that enables us to feel and act as if certain unseen things are as visible as the hand in front of our face. Having this kind of faith means that we possess a gut-level conviction: That these invisible and heavenly realities are truly real.

When it came to slaying sin, Paul had a “reckoning” faith: “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11, NKJV). Other translations say count yourselves, or consider yourselves dead to sin. In other words, “You already believe that Christ is dead to sin, and that you are united to Him in His death. So reckon yourself also as a dead man/woman: Dead to this age which is passing away; dead to the lure of sin in your body; dead to the voices of your culture that try to shape your values; dead to the demonic rulers that hold sway over this world. If you really believe the new age has already dawned in Christ, then reckon yourself a part of that age, where sin does not even exist, where all things are set right.”

The Secret of Slaying Sin

Just as the Spirit empowered Christ to live victorious over temptation, so the Spirit empowers us. The Spirit is the One that will inspire in us the kind of “reckoning faith” needed to overcome. However, many Christians who wish to fight the power of sin in their lives lack an understanding of how the Spirit will empower them.

For some, their hearts are focused only on their own efforts to slay sin: More prayer, more fasting, more service, and more trying. These people are doomed to failure in the long haul, for the only thing they have the power to do is trade one sin for another. Sin will always be their master.

For others, their hearts are focused on the power of the Holy Spirit within them, but they aren’t sure how to rely on the Spirit. These people also turn to fasting, prayer, and personal worship. Moreover, they realize there is no power in these disciplines themselves; only the Spirit ultimately transforms us. But they treat the Spirit more like an electrical source that they must plug themselves into, or an energy drink they must ingest. Somehow, by just taking in a Spirit-charged environment of the Bible, fervent worship, and Christian fellowship, they will get the “boost” they need to obey God.

The Spirit is certainly here and will impart power and new life to us, but not, as it were, a mere boost to human willpower. When the Spirit comes in power, He comes not as a naked surge of power, but clothed with words of truth and visions of Christ’s glory (John 16:13-15). When the Spirit empowers, He does not give a boost to our self-confidence, but He comes to convict us of our depravity (John 16:8-11). The Spirit is not an impersonal substance but a real Person who comes to communicate a powerful vision of who Christ is and how deeply we need Him. Through this new inner vision of Christ, He empowers the whole person (mind, emotion, and will) to rely in faith on Christ alone for resurrection power which transforms us from the inside out.

Paul wrote, “[T]hose who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5). Just what are the things of the Spirit? Simply put, the Spirit is all about Christ. Period. He loves Christ. He is enthralled with Christ. He remembers and communicates perfectly the death of Christ and all its benefits. He sees Jesus’ nail pierced hands and His risen body. He sees perfectly the resurrected Christ in all His glory. He sees Him in perfect unity with the Father. He overhears their intimate conversations. He sees the wonderful, supernatural life Jesus enjoys every moment at His Father’s side. He comes to share that vision with our minds and imaginations. Moreover He inspires in us an expectation that we, someday, will experience the same glory.

And as we behold and grow in our fascination with Christ, the image of God’s glory, we shall be transformed into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:6). The more we take the focus off of ourselves (our failures, our ministries, our aspirations, our petty interests), and the more we become enthralled with the risen Christ, the more vital our union with Christ will become to us.

Tim Keller once said,

“Many people believe in propositions. They believe the historical facts about Jesus, but their real agenda is personal success. So they go to Christ when they want to and need to. Paul says that a Christian is someone who has turned all that around so that personal success is defined by knowing Him and the power of His resurrection, and everything else becomes second.”

Read Part 7

  1. rick

    I have been thinking much of this message of dead to sin, and alive to God. I have tried with much failure to be dead to sin. And have come to believe that the Holy Spirit enables me to experience the reality of actually being dead to sin. And as I once was very alive to sin, being seriously infected to it and very sick. Now I am instead very alive to God, by the law of the Spirit. And this promise of being alive to God must also be experienced by faith. I am so humbled to know there is nothing in me to bring these realities of dead to sin and alive to God. It is through the enabling power of the Spirit that I will experience these realities of the Word. If this is not the case, then I am a miserable failure . And I am a doomed man. I become introverted and my head hangs low when I fail to be an upstanding person. I think, well Rick, you are a christian, you should be different in your acting. Well, yes, I should be! But I must rely on God to work in me my idenity with Christ. Namely dead to sin and alive to God.. I must learn self control. I am exhausted in trying to be an overcomer. I am out of stength of willpower. But it has made me to reach out with the only option left. And that is overcoming BY the SPIRIT. He is disciplining me, wooing me to do the right things. Even as the devil was a cruel master to make me do wrong. So the Spirit is a gentle, but firm master to make me do right. This is my belief and hope.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related in Defeat Lust & Pornography

Editor's Picks

A teenage girl standing apart from a group of friends.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Was a 12-Year-Old Girl Addicted To Porn

All the assumptions that pornography was a boy’s struggle completely dismissed me,…

2 minute read

Read Post

Editor's Picks

Woman habitually looking at her phone.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

Porn Habit vs. Porn Addiction: Is There a Difference?

What’s the difference between being addicted to porn and merely having a…

6 minute read

Read Post

Editor's Picks

A teenage girl using a computer.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

Is Something Wrong With Me?: A Woman’s Struggle With Porn

Sin has taken the form of nude images, explicit magazines, TV shows,…

4 minute read

Read Post

Editor's Picks

Woman reading the Bible with her cup of coffee.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

How to Overcome Porn Addiction According to the Bible

The Bible clearly tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. It…

5 minute read

Read Post

Editor's Picks

A young woman singing with a microphone in church.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Was the “Perfect” Christian Girl and Addicted to Porn

I was introduced to pornography toward the end of elementary school. As…

3 minute read

Read Post

Editor's Picks

A teenage girl alone at night with her phone.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Thought I Was the Only Girl to Ever Struggle With This

The struggles I have had with pornography have been long and hard.…

3 minute read

Read Post

Related in Defeat Lust & Pornography

A teenage girl standing apart from a group of friends.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Was a 12-Year-Old Girl Addicted To Porn

All the assumptions that pornography was a boy’s struggle completely dismissed me,…

All the assumptions that pornography was a boy’s struggle completely dismissed me, a twelve-year-old girl addicted to porn. I was part of a large percentage of teens using pornography, and while so many of us…

2 minute read

0 comments

Woman habitually looking at her phone.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

Porn Habit vs. Porn Addiction: Is There a Difference?

What’s the difference between being addicted to porn and merely having a…

What’s the difference between being addicted to porn and merely having a porn habit? Habits are behaviors that have become automatic over time. Addiction involves a deeper change in your neurochemistry. Habits might be changed…

6 minute read

0 comments

A teenage girl using a computer.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

Is Something Wrong With Me?: A Woman’s Struggle With Porn

Sin has taken the form of nude images, explicit magazines, TV shows,…

Sin has taken the form of nude images, explicit magazines, TV shows, R-rated movies, sexual assault, and little minds being exposed to perversion at a young age. Whether the calendar reads 1932 or 2024, both…

4 minute read

0 comments

Woman reading the Bible with her cup of coffee.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

How to Overcome Porn Addiction According to the Bible

The Bible clearly tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. It…

The Bible clearly tells us what we should and shouldn’t do. It tells us that watching pornography is a sin and something Christians should strive to avoid.  But what if you are addicted to pornography? Suppose…

5 minute read

0 comments

A young woman singing with a microphone in church.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Was the “Perfect” Christian Girl and Addicted to Porn

I was introduced to pornography toward the end of elementary school. As…

I was introduced to pornography toward the end of elementary school. As a young Christian girl who had never imagined, seen or heard about such things, this exposure planted a seed in my mind that…

3 minute read

0 comments

A teenage girl alone at night with her phone.

Defeat Lust & Pornography

I Thought I Was the Only Girl to Ever Struggle With This

The struggles I have had with pornography have been long and hard.…

The struggles I have had with pornography have been long and hard. It is a road that I have traveled since I was a young girl and something that has filled my life with so…

3 minute read

0 comments