Dedicated to providing guidance in daily living through the power of God's grace
as experienced in our union with Christ.

Living by Grace draws upon the 5 commands found in Romans 6:11-13.

One can live the abundant life through living by grace. Obey the five commands found in Romans 6:11-13 and experience your life “in Christ.”  Notice that each command is either to believe something or to choose something.

Romans 6:11-13c (NKJV) Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 and do  not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

The Five Commands

1  Romans 6:11 Believe - Reckon (believe) yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

"Reckon" is an accounting term. It means to consider something as having been recorded in the accounting books as a fact. We, therefore are to believe that God has recorded in His books that we are dead to sin (our sin nature inherited from Adam) and alive to Him. When we accept Jesus as our savior, God considers us as having been spiritually crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ. Our spiritual crucifixion is when we died to our sin nature and our spiritual resurrection is when we became alive to God. We are to believe this whether we feel it or not.

2  Romans 6:12 Choose - Do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lust.

Before we accepted Jesus Christ as our savior, we were slaves to our sin nature and had no power of our own to overcome its reign in our body and mind. Once we accept Jesus and believe we are now dead to our sin nature, we are free to choose not to let it rule over us. We are slaves no longer and can choose not to obey it.

3  Romans 6:13a Choose - Do not present your members (body) as instruments of  unrighteousness to sin.

Sin begins in our heart (with our thoughts) which, if left unchecked, we will act on with our bodies. Since we can now choose not to obey sin, we also choose not to let our bodies become instruments of unrighteousness by engaging in sinful conduct.

4  Romans 6:13b Choose & Believe - Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead.

Because we believe we have been crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ, we are now able to present ourselves to God as new creations, resurrected from our now dead sin nature, available to do His bidding in our lives.

5  Romans 6:13c Choose - (Present) your members (body) as instruments of righteousness to God.

We can also now allow our bodies to become instruments of God as He works through us to do His good will which is always righteous.

We can and should obey each of these verses because Romans 6:3-5 teaches that all believers have been baptized into Jesus … and as a result all believers have been baptized into His death, burial, and resurrection.

Romans 6:3-5  (NIV) … Or don’t you know that all of those who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death … burial … and resurrection.