🪔 Carrying the Death and Life of Jesus

There was a question that troubled me for a long time:

If my sins were put on Christ at the cross, why do I still struggle with them?
Why are they still showing up in my life, my thoughts, my habits?
Did they somehow return to me after being placed on Him?

I knew I wasn’t creating new sin — this was the same old me with the same old battles, even though my spirit had been made new in Christ. So, what was I missing?

One day, I came across this Scripture: “Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10, NKJV).

That verse unlocked something deep for me.
What was on Jesus when He died?
Our sins. He bore them in His body on the cross. (1 Peter 2:24)

So, if we, as believers, are carrying the death of Christ within us, then we also carry the effect of what His death accomplished — the putting away of our sin and its power over us.

When we accept Christ, we receive both His death and His resurrection.
He died with our sins placed on His body. Now we, in union with Him, are called to daily die to sin and walk in the newness of life.

“We carry in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus.”
That means we carry a death to sin — but also the power of resurrection.

This is why Paul said: “If Christ is in you, though your body is dead because of sin, your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10, AMP).

Yes, sin is still present in this mortal body. But its power is broken.
Its dominion is dead.
And its rule is over.

“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:6, NKJV)

We’re no longer under its control — but we must still die to it daily.

Jesus didn’t just die for us — He died with our sins on Him and now calls us to die with Him that we may also live through Him.

“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18, KJV).

The cross broke sin’s power. Resurrection life gives us power to overcome it.
We carry both — because in Christ, we die to sin and rise to freedom.

— Tania Francis