Salvation is a decision that's settled once for all, but living the crucified life is a continual practice - daily, and for most of us, hourly.  Paul said, "I die daily."  The crucified life is the practice of my position.  Positionally, I have been crucified with Christ at Calvary.  That's how God sees me.

But some people hold a position, yet their practice is totally inconsistent with their position. Being married means that, positionally, I am dead to all other women.  When I said, "I do," all other women in the world became non-existent in my life, and there is only one.  But there are a lot of folks whose practice is totally inconsistent with their postion.  Postionally, I am dead to all other women, and alive to my wife, but it's up to me to see that my practice matches my position.

If there is no death to the world, there is no death to sin, but rather a redirection into what we would call "more respectable" sins.  We go from the sin of smoking to sins of spiritual pride and self-righteousness.  We don't cuss anymore, but we gossip.  The Bible says that we're to cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, but many of us just cleansed ourselves of the filthiness of the flesh and graduated to the filth of the spirit.