My Dad was a blue-collar worker. I remember every day at 5:45 in the morning he woke up and prepared a lunch (sandwich, chips, pickle and fruit) and packed it into his lunch pail. Then, he usually ate a dried cereal breakfast (Wheaties) with banana, milk and toast with apricot or plum jelly and was out the door by 6:30 checking in at the plant by 7:00 AM prepared to go to work. Dad was known as a hard, prepared worker. His supervisor knew that he would present himself daily to 8 hard hours toward the task given to him. I believe Romans 6:8-11 are blue collar verses. Every day, when we get up, we need to prepare for the day with these verses and work daily accordingly.
Verses 8&9 state, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.” In these verses, it clearly declares that we not only died with Christ, we live with Christ! The passage says Christ will never die again and death no longer has dominion over him. Since we live with him, guess what? Death no longer has dominion over us. Verse 9 says, “We know” this. Put this in your lunch pail.
Now that you know this, Paul says in verse 11, “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Once you know the victory you have in Christ, consider it so! If we know that we died with him, and got out of the grave with him, activate your will in the Spirit and consider it true in your life. Claim it! It is true, so consider yourself eternally alive in His resurrected power. This is a blue-collar verse. Make sure every day you activate your will in the Spirit by considering yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. A blue-collar Christian will realize that if not he will be unprepared for a working day.
Now one more step: Verses 12-14 say, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Now, since you have been brought from death to life with Jesus, present yourself totally, whole-heartedly to God as an instrument for righteousness. You cannot compartmentalize and hold anything back. Then, the passage states sin will have no dominion over you. Once at the plant, a good blue-collar worker presents himself to his supervisor and surrenders himself to the work that needs to be done.
Become a Blue-Collar Christian: KNOW – CONSIDER – PRESENT…every day!
Barnabas Man 