"So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:11)

Let me remind you of an almost unbelievable truth, one I say to myself a dozen times a day. "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."

You might not know this, but this exhortation is the first in the whole book of Romans. It's the first time Romans tells believers are to do anything.

Up to this point, Romans is all about what Christ has done. It's all about the great transfer that has occurred. It culminates in Romans 6:1-4, where Paul tells us that we have died with Christ, been buried with Christ so that we might walk in and live in Christ's newness of life today.

So, if it's true that great transfer has occurred, that believers are no longer in Adam, but now in Christ, then we must consider -- count, believe, reckon, think, say it to be so -- that just like Jesus is, you are now alive to God. Awake to God. Experiencing God. Have access to God.

And you are dead to sin. It has no power over you, no victory over you. It cannot demand your activity. It cannot demand your body, because you must consider yourself dead indeed to sin like Jesus is, and alive to God like Jesus is.

It is, as I said, an almost unbelievable truth. But in Christ, it is real.