24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 1 Peter 2:24-25

These two verses are a beautiful word picture of what happened on Calvary. His sacrifice made our death to sins possible. But it doesn’t stop there, we are to live for righteousness. It’s more than a subtle point. Dying to sins is more than half the battle. Living victorious lives of righteousness completes the picture. Neither are easy to do in this fallen, sinful world. We face pressures all around us that would distract us from those two tasks, which is why we need to die to sin.

Verse 25, however, points us in the right direction. God realized that dying to sin and living for righteousness would be impossible without supernatural help. We can’t do it on our own. The fact that we still try is testament to the fact that we haven’t died to sin! We think we tough it out and face and conquer Satan and his minions on our own. What a fallacy.

But when we run back to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, the Bible says we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:31-39 NIV).