1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness and sin not…(KJV)
When you are awake (aware) to the truth that your righteousness is not your own, but Jesus’ righteousness gifted to you, that’s when you walk in dominion over sin.
The ability to walk in dominion over sin has nothing to do with your self-effort or willpower, or making a resolution, or saying “I’m not going to do that anymore” but everything to do with the work of God’s grace through Christ’s righteousness in you. Every time you try to depend on your own self-effort to overcome an addiction, temptation or bad habit, you will only fall deeper into condemnation because your flesh is weak and it’s unable to deal with sin. You might succeed for a season, but eventually, the flesh gives in. It's only through the power of God’s grace that you can overcome sin in your life.
Grace goes to work every day when you carry a “righteousness consciousness” and not a “sin consciousness”. So many Believers carry a sin consciousness, thinking it’s a form of humility that reminds them of how undeserving they are before God. But a sin consciousness is never going to enable you to have dominion over sin. It will only cause you to become weak and dominated by sin. Alternately, a righteousness consciousness will reveal to you your elevated position and standing “in Christ” – as He is, so are you in this world (1 John 4:17). Your strength is not in yourself, your strength comes because you are in Christ!
This is why you always want to be sitting under preaching that declares what Jesus has done for you and who you are in Christ because it builds this revelation deeper into you. We don’t preach sin, we don’t even preach against sin! Preaching against sin only opens the old door of the law. Preaching righteousness opens the new way into grace!
I recall a young man claimed this preaching is “hyper-grace” (i.e. an exaggerated interpretation of grace that simply excuses people’s lifestyle of sin). The truth is there is no such thing as hyper-grace because grace cannot be limited to fit within the definition of a human being. Grace is unlimited and we grow in God’s grace as we continue to grow in our revelation of Jesus!
Jesus and the grace that He walked in was not hyper-grace it was “infinite grace” because it comes from the realm of the everlasting – from glory to glory! Jesus is also merciful, meaning He is full of the mercies of God. But I never hear these same people saying that we are preaching “hyper-mercy". How silly it is to play with words and semantics and then become robbed of the truth through it!
The truth is that you want more of Jesus' glorious grace because it is going to transform you to become more like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).