Grace - Sin can lay claim on neither Jesus, nor you. Part 1

Below is an excerpt from Paul Ellis' book "The Gospel in Ten Words".  I've highlighted a few key sentences.  Enjoy!

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

When you were in Adam you had no choice but to walk according to the flesh.  Trusting in your own abilities and walking by sight is what unbeliever call normal life, but it's a faithless life.  Since anything that is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23), your former life was inherently sinful.  I don't mean to say you were a raging criminal.  It's just that you were incapable of pleasing the Lord, no matter what you did.  You may have been a good sinner or a bad sinner, but you were a sinner nonetheless.  You were separated from the life of God through your ignorance and unbelief.

But now you are a saint, and a sinner no more.  You have a new identity, a new life, and a new master.  You are no longer a slave to Sin.  You now have the freedom to choose how you will walk, either in the old way of the flesh, or in the new way of the spirit.  But here's the important bit:  If you choose to walk in the old way, your new life will resemble your old one.  This is why some Christians are still bound.  They have left Egypt, but Egypt hasn't left them. They are still thinking like slaves and heeding the voice of their old master.

It certainly doesn't help matter when these precious brothers and sisters are told that their sinful behavior proves they still possess a sinful nature or an innate tendency to sin.  This is simply not true.  Your old self was crucified.  Any sinful nature you once had has been cut off, and that circumcision was not done by the hands of men (Colossians 2:11).  You are one with the Lord.  You do not have two natures dueling for control inside you.  You are a partaker of the sinless life and divine nature of Jesus Christ.

So how do we partake?  (To be continued...)