Romans 6:12-13

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Paul is clear here that we have the choice of allowing or not allowing sin to reign in us. Many of us have grown up in a world of “do” and “do not” in terms of sinful behaviors. When we think of holiness, we often think of specific sins that we have to stand against in our own strength. That’s not what Paul is saying here. He is saying that because we have been “brought from death to life” and from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, we not only have the power to resist sin, but we also have the freedom to “present our bodies” as instruments of righteousness.

Before Christ, or perhaps before we knew our inheritance in the kingdom, we might have just gone with the flow of our thoughts or desires or bodies, and thought that our actions were the result of some inevitable combination of our personalities and the outward influences of our lives. But as we grow in spiritual and Biblical understanding, we come to realize that in reality, we offered our members (bodies, including our brains) as offerings to sin for unrighteousness. Maybe we wouldn’t have called it that, but that’s what we were doing in God’s sight.

What the Lord has done in His death and resurrection is to open up a whole new connection with God that now enables us to choose differently., and to “let” something happen that wasn’t possible before. Before Christ, we “let” sin reign in our bodies, even if it seems as if we 1) just went with the flow, or 2) sinned simply because we chose to. What we didn’t have the freedom to do—the option to do—we now can do. Where we formerly chose poorly, we can now choose wisely. Remember that this scripture passage begins with “let,” reminding us again that we now have the power to allow something to happen.

To use a current term, we now have agency. God has opened up a choice for us that didn’t exist before. How do we access this wonderful opportunity? We “present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.” The ability to say no to sin and yes to walking in righteousness is found in presenting ourselves to God and staying in that connection. Then we can “let” a power flow that doesn’t just resist sin, but enables us to walk in His grace and strength, exhibiting the characteristics of Christ in our mortal bodies.

Remember that we have incredible power and authority available to us. It’s not our own power, which is so very limited. But it’s the very power of God, available to us in Christ, that we can tap into and let flow. If you’re not used to looking at sin and righteousness this way, try believing what God says, press into Him when next you’re tempted to sin, and start to discover the power to present all the various “instruments” of your life righteously.