Triciahh

Hello everyone! I've taken a few of these Joyful Heart studies and always learn a lot. I very much enjoy reading other people's insights and thoughts from around the world. I live in Mississippi, USA, just over the Tennessee state line. My town is essentially a suburb of Memphis. I look forward to meeting and learning with you all.

Hello, everyone! My name is Tricia. It is nice to meet you all. I've done several of the Jesus Walk studies with pastor Ralph. I always learn a lot and it's very cool to get the perspective of Christians from different backgrounds and cultures. Learner, and Stacy, what areas of Tennessee are you in? I live in Southaven, Mississippi which is essentially a suburb of Memphis, TN where I lived most of my life. I also lived several years in Jackson, TN. I am 51, been divorced for 10 years and have one adult son who lives about 3 hours away. My cat, Ethel, and I have the house to ourselves now. I have been a Christian most of my life though I didn't always live like it. I am now a member of a Lutheran church but it is not a "typical" Lutheran church. The worship service is casual and contemporary, and our church has a real heart to reach the community with the love of Jesus in tangible ways which I think is great.

There is no place of independence from God. If we are not slaves to God then we are slaves to sin. Because we are temporarily stuck in our sinful bodies, it can be hard to let go and give all our loyalty to God. I also think fear prevents us from firmly taking God

Good doctrine provides guidelines for us to follow in our everyday walk. Any teaching that contradicts scripture is to be avoided.

Slaves have no option other than obedience. Our actions show to whom we are slaves, be it God or sin. Bondage to sin has been broken already by Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we replace our sinful actions of obedience to Satan with Christlike actions of obedience to Him. An area I know God is speaking to me about is to stop wasting time on things like bad television, and spend more time in His word.

The first thing I think of is my tongue. I can use it to praise God or curse the driver ho cuts me off in traffic. I think we can sin unconsciously in the same way we do any habit. We have to stop and repent as soon as we are aware that committed (or are committing) sin. As we deliberately replace old sinful habits with new Christlike actions and attitudes, our unconscious sins will be less and less.

When we are obedient to God, He is reigning in us-Sin has been dethroned!

It means to count it so because it IS so! If you count a dozen apples, then you consider that you have 12 apples because you do. If we live our lives as though this is true (because it is), then a radical difference is obvious. We live as Jesus did-holy and pure, loving others in everything we do.

Our sinful old self is dead and powerless because Christ was more powerful even than death, which was proved by His resurrection. Something dead cannot hurt us unless we willingly allow it to. Upon death, slaves no longer must serve their former masters. Since we are no longer slaves, we are free to choose to follow Jesus and His teachings.

I think Paul could be referring both to figurative death and the historical death of Jesus. He is our representative and His death becomes our own as we identify with Him when we trust Him for our salvation. This has far reaching real-world application to how we live out our daily lives as new creations. But we will also eventually die literally and be raised with Jesus with new sinless bodies.

I feel like I am missing something in this question because the answer seems too obvious and simple. Going into the water corresponds with burial and rising from the water corresponds with the resurrection from the dead.

In baptism we choose to identify with Christ by showing our faith through obedience. It is a visual picture of being buried with Him and rising to new life in Him or of being washed of our sins to new purity in Him.

This passage seems to that that at the time of baptism we move from being buried with Adam to being risen with Christ. As RickJW said so well To bring this about, we have to identify ourselves with Christ by faith. If we are dead to sin we are no longer bound to live slave to sin. We are free to live for Him!

Adam represents all humankind simply because God says that

Before the law was given, mankind was in rebellion against God but individual acts were not counted as deliberate sins. Sin existed but we were unable to see it as sin. The law pointed out how these acts failed to meet God