There was a man who lived in a small town and owned a goat that was more like a pet than a farm animal.  He loved this goat and treated it like a part of the family.  One night he received a phone call that his goat had somehow escaped, wandered far from home, had been hit by a car and was laying dead in a ditch. Grieved and brokenhearted, the man drove to the place that had been described to retrieve his goat and give him a proper burial.

As he approached the goat, much to his amazement, he realized the goat was not dead, but very much alive.  Someone had stolen the goat, tied its legs together, then for some reason tossed him out in the ditch.  The man ran to the goat, cut the ropes from his legs, slapped him on the backside and yelled, “Get up.”  But the goat just laid there with his legs clinging just as they had been tied.  Again, the man slapped the goat and yelled, “Let’s go.”  The goat didn’t budge.

Amazed by the stupidity of the goat, the man said, “Bless this dumb old goat, he is free and he doesn’t even know it.”  He then reached down, opened up the legs of the goat, lifted it to its feet, and the goat began to walk.

It would be easy to laugh at the goat, make fun of the goat, and even chastise the goat for acting in such a way, but perhaps we should be careful.  Too many times we, as Believers in Jesus Christ, act in the very same manner.  We have been set free, we have been loosed from the penalty of sin, as well as the power of sin…yet we still live as if we are bound by sin’s grip.

Paul wrote in Romans…For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:10-11 (NASB)

When Jesus died, He rendered sin powerless.  As Believers in Jesus, we celebrate the same death and victory over sin as Christ.  That is why Paul says, consider yourselves to be dead to sin.  Sin has been rendered powerless in our lives.  The Holy Spirit living in us grants us the power to overcome the flesh and the pull of sin, but we must choose, moment by moment, to walk in the Spirit.  In Galatians the Bible tells us to …walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.  Galatians 5:16 (NASB)

Let me encourage and challenge you to not act like a lifeless goat laying in the ditch, feeling like you are bound by sin.  You have been set free, the cords of sin have been broken, and you have victory in Jesus!