…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. —Romans 6:6

Sin is not something we can manage. Try as we may to maintain it, sin will grow like a weed in a garden and that weed must be plucked out, killed, destroyed, lest it take over. We must come to this decisive moment on our own, though. There has to be a time when the beauty of the flowers, the fragrance of their blossoms become more desirable than the beauty of the weeds. Sure weeds have flowers and perhaps even a fragrance but nothing compared to that of the glorious rose! As tired as we may become of seeing the weeds grow, there has to be a time when we do something about it.

Paul speaks of dealing with the weeds of sin throughout the book of Romans. Taking a verse like Galatians 2:20, Paul declares his own identification with Jesus on the cross to the demise of sin. But in Romans 6:11 Paul gives a very clear statement that we must “ consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We must look at things a certain way; ourselves a certain way.

If the beauty of the weeds in our lives is still attractive, it is because we have failed to envision a Garden for which we were created. We have been duped into looking at the fruit of one tree instead of the Fruits of the Garden. To get back to the Garden Life, we must identify with another tree first and that is the cross of Christ. Otherwise, sin will eventually overtake our entire being.

As leaders we must be as ruthless about sin in our lives, perhaps more than we are with anyone else. We cannot control or maintain other people’s spiritual diets, habits, or struggles but we can deal with our own. And we must. Paul says that there is only one way to deal with sin and that is to destroy it. We cannot pamper, cater, feed, nurture, hide, or pretend anything about sin. It is deadly; therefore must be destroyed in our own lives. Jesus died to destroy the nature and power of sin, thus we need not submit to it any longer.

Oswald Chambers said:

Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.

Final Thought: Sin will not grow at the foot of the cross.