Finished with sin

 This week's verses are 1 Peter 4:1-5:

 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same attitude, because the one who has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin, in that he spends the rest of his time on earth concerned about the will of God and not human desires. For the time that has passed was sufficient for you to do what the non-Christians desire. You lived then in debauchery, evil desires, drunkenness, carousing, drinking bouts, and wanton idolatries. So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you. They will face a reckoning before Jesus Christ who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 

Saint Peter is reminding us that we can start life anew, thanks to Jesus. 

In a natural sense, we already know we have the capacity to start over. Big events can help us to make radical changes in our lives. A DWI arrest, for instance, may lead to someone renouncing alcohol forever and sticking to being sober for life. A scary diagnosis may lead to someone changing their diet and renouncing their old way of eating forever. Having kids can sometimes cause us to give up risky behaviors and never go back. Even in a secular sense, we have the ability to make big changes and to turn direction rapidly in life.

What Peter is getting at here is that this is even more true in Christ. Jesus demonstrated that we can live without sin, and on the cross he gave us access to his power to fight. We have the ability to change direction and start a new way of life. That is what repentance is. The difference for us as Christians is that we can change with the help of Christ's power.

And not only are we able to change, but we are actually compelled to. Things which are normalized in society have steep penalties in eternity. Where we might be understood by others if we stayed in bad patterns of life, and maybe even celebrated, as Christians we instead find ourselves in conflict with God's desire for our lives.

Peter asks us the right question: Haven't you had more than enough time up until now to do the ungodly things your flesh wants to do? You've probably done more than enough, so there's no better time than now to try something different. Jesus went to the cross to end the power sin has over your life. So you should be able to avail yourself of that higher power, if you are ready to make the change that is required of you.

But do we do it? Mostly not. Yet Peter's question is a good one. Why should we continue in doing the wrong thing when we've already seen the bad results it produces, and when free help is being offered to do the right thing? When it comes down to it, maybe we're not as unhappy with our sin as we suggest. Maybe we don't want to follow the will of God as much as we would like to believe.

There is one detail we are overlooking though: We are called to follow Christ in imitation. And Peter reminds us that Jesus focused on God's plan, not the plan of the flesh. If we are going to be Christians, the goal is to be like Christ, right? So even as he offers us help in walking the right path he has demonstrated that he himself can walk it.

So this week is a good week to think about how you have been living and how you should be living. Do not neglect the example of Jesus and his offer to transform your life.  He suffered to end sin so that we could be free to do the right thing.