Count Yourself
READ
One of the most disorienting things about the Christian life is the gap between who we are told we are and how we actually feel on any given Tuesday. The Bible says we are new creations. It says we are free. It says sin no longer has dominion over us. And yet, if we are honest, most of us wake up fairly regularly feeling like the same old person with the same old struggles, wondering if any of it is actually true.
Paul does not ignore this tension — he speaks directly into it. And his answer is not to try harder or feel differently. His answer is to reckon — to count it as true, to think rightly about who you actually are.
Take a moment to read Romans 6:11-14:
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
REFLECT
Romans 6:11-14 is one of the most practically powerful passages in all of Scripture, because it bridges the gap between a theological truth and everyday life. Paul has just finished explaining that through Christ, our old self has died and a new self has been raised. Now he tells us what to do with that reality:
"In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires." — Romans 6:11-12
That word count — or in some translations, reckon — is a deliberate, intentional act of the mind. It is not pretending. It is not wishful thinking. It is choosing to agree with what God says is true about you, even when your feelings are slow to catch up. You are not a slave to sin, trying to get free — you are a free person who is learning to live free. That distinction changes everything.
This is why identity is so central to the Christian life. The way we live flows almost entirely from the way we see ourselves. If we see ourselves as helpless, we will live helplessly. If we see ourselves as defined by our worst moments, we will keep returning to them. But if we see ourselves as God sees us — dead to sin, alive to God, covered in grace, and free in Christ — something begins to shift. We stop fighting from a place of defeat and start living from a place of victory already secured.
Paul goes on to say: "For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace." Under grace is not a casual phrase — it is a declaration of jurisdiction. You are no longer under the rule of sin and its consequences. You are under the rule of grace, which means you are living in a kingdom where mercy is the law of the land, where failure is not final, and where every single day is an opportunity to begin again.
Living from your new identity does not mean you will never struggle. It means you no longer have to be defined by the struggle. It means that when sin knocks — and it will knock — you have the authority to remind yourself and the enemy of exactly who you are and Whose you are. You are not who you used to be. You are not what you have done. You are not what has been done to you. You are alive to God in Christ Jesus, and that identity is more permanent, more powerful, and more true than anything else that could be spoken over your life.
So today, before the noise of the day sets in, take a moment to reckon. To count it as true. To agree with heaven about who you are. You are free. You are new. You are loved. And grace — not sin — gets the final word.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
When you think about your identity, what tends to define you most — your failures and struggles, or who God says you are in Christ? What would it look like to begin each day by deliberately choosing to agree with what God says about you?
Romans 6:13 invites us to offer ourselves to God as "instruments of righteousness." What does that look like practically in your daily life — in the way you spend your time, treat others, or steward the opportunities in front of you?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Lord, I confess that I do not always live like someone who is free — that I return to old identities and old patterns more than I would like to admit. Teach me to reckon, to count as true what You say is true, even when my feelings are slow to follow. Today I choose to agree with You — I am dead to sin, alive to God, and no longer under the rule of what once held me. Let that truth be the foundation I stand on and the lens I see through today. Amen.