Are you Alive or Dead?

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Colossians 3:5 Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

Romans 6:8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

Yet a friend asked me, "Then why am I still tempted by sin, by immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed?"

I consider this friend very wise, since most never recognize what the real question is.

As I persued the answer, it came to me. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

Did you ever hear of a woman who lost a child tragically at a young age, and kept the child's room as it was the day the child was lost? She's keeping the memory of the child alive. She has built memorials, shrines to the child with reminders in every room.

When we died with Christ, we died to sin, but we still have to change the furniture in the chambers of our hearts; the shrines, the memorials and memories that remind us of the old man.

The old man is dead but the memory of him needs to be eradicated.

If not, this is where our enemy has an easy job. He only has to remind us of the old memories of the dead man. Many believe these lies.

But I have discovered once the truth is made real to me, it becomes unshakeable. This happens as I identify a lie and say, "That is just a memory of the dead man not Me, alive in Christ." The lie is instantly powerless in my life. The more this happens, the less ability the enemy has to get me to act, think or desire the things of the old man.