Today’s Devotional
You already know this verse. You could probably recite something close to it from memory, or at least nod when someone reads it aloud. The words are familiar: dead to sin, alive to God. They sound finished, settled, like a fact recorded in a textbook you studied years ago and passed the exam on.
But Paul uses a present tense verb here. “Count yourselves.” Not “you were counted” or “it has been settled for you.” Count. An active instruction addressed to people who are already believers, already saved, already on the other side of the cross. He speaks to them as if the matter still requires their participation, today, in this room, at this hour. Something about that word means the work is not behind them.
Counting is a deliberate act. An accountant does not glance at the numbers and guess. A shepherd does not assume the flock is complete without walking through it. Paul asks something similar: that you look at your own life and, with full awareness, declare what is true. Dead to what once owned you. Alive to what now holds you. This is not a memory of conversion. It is a present tense discipline, the kind you practice the way you practice breathing: not because you might forget how, but because the rhythm matters and the attention keeps you whole.
Time to reflect
This verse asks you to count. Before you move past that word, weigh it:
- When was the last time you actively chose to see yourself as someone new, rather than coasting on a decision you made months or years ago?
- What specific habit or thought pattern do you keep excusing because “that is just how I am,” even though you suspect grace has already made room for something different?
- If someone watched your last ordinary Tuesday, what would they say you are alive to?
- Where in your routine has faith become a label you wear rather than a posture you take?
Prayer Of The Day
Lord, I confess that I have treated your work in me as something completed, a line I crossed once and then stopped thinking about. I have memorized the vocabulary of new life without practicing its grammar. I have called myself changed and then lived unchanged. Teach me what Paul meant by that verb: count. Help me see that the identity you gave me requires my attention, my choosing, my returning to it on ordinary mornings when nothing dramatic is happening and the old patterns feel easier. I want to be awake to you, not just aware of you. Show me the difference, and give me the willingness to live in it. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Strengthening Faith
Newness requires motion, and motion begins with single steps taken on purpose:
- Read Romans 6:1-14, the full passage surrounding today’s verse. Notice how many verbs Paul uses that require the reader to do something, and write down the three that challenge you most.
- Identify one response you defaulted to this week out of old habit, a reaction you have outgrown but keep reaching for. Name it out loud, then name what you would choose instead.
- During your lunch break, sit somewhere you do not usually sit. Eat without your phone. Let the unfamiliar angle remind you that seeing differently is a practice, not an accident.
- Tell someone today, in person or by voice, one specific way your faith has changed how you handle difficulty. Keep it concrete: not “God is good” but “here is what I did differently because of what I believe.”
- Pick a moment tonight to stand still for sixty seconds and say, silently or aloud, “I am alive to God.” Not as a wish. As a count, a declaration of what is already true.
Today Wisdom
“Count” is a verb that belongs to people who hold ledgers, who tally grain, who check the flock at dusk. Paul borrowed it and handed it to believers: your identity is real, but it asks to be read aloud each morning, the way a name on a deed still requires someone to walk through the door and live there.
