Have I decided that sin will be killed in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but when I do it is the great moment of my life. In this moment, I decide that just as Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, so sin will be put to death in me. Sin won’t simply be curbed or suppressed or counteracted in me; it will be outright crucified.
No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may think that getting rid of sin is a good idea. We may agree that it’s what our religion asks of us. But what we must do is come to the decision Paul forces us to in Romans 6. Paul doesn’t describe something he hopes God will bring about in the future; he recounts a radical and definite experience: “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).
Am I prepared to let the Spirit of God search me until I see what it means to have a sinful disposition—to have something inside me that wars against the Spirit of God? Will I agree with God’s verdict on that disposition, that it must be identified with the death of Jesus? Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until the only life remaining in my body is the life of Christ? “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
If you haven’t done it already, make the moral decision about sin. Take time alone with God and tell him what you want. Say to him, “Lord, identify me with your death until sin is dead in me.” Only when we’ve been through this radical moment of decision can we consider ourselves dead to sin.
