Romans 6 Slaves to Righteousness. (Part 1) :15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! :16 dont you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? :17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. :18 You have been set free from sin, and have become slaves to righteousness. :19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. :20 When benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in deaths! :22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. :23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (6:17. To obey wholeheartedly means to give yourself fully to God, to love him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And yet so often our efforts to know and obey Gods commands can best be described as halfhearted. How do you rate your hearts obedience? God wants to give you the power to obey him with all your heart. The form of teaching they were to obey refers to the Good News that Jesus died for their sins and was raised to give them new life. Many believe that this refers to the early churchs statement of faith found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. 6:19-22. It is impossible to be neutral. Every person has a master - either God or sin. A Christian is not someone who cannot sin, but someone who is no longer a slave to sin. He or she belongs to God. 6:23. You are free to choose between two masters, but you are not free to adjust the consequences of your choice. Each of the two masters pays with his own kind of currency. The currency of sin is eternal death. That is all you can expect or hope for in life without God. Christs currency is eternal life - new life with God that begins on earth and continues forever with God. What choice have you made? Eternal life is a free gift from God. If it is a gift, then it is not something that we earn, nor something that must be paid back. Consider the foolishness of someone who receives a gift given out of love and then offers to pay for it. A gift cannot be purchased by the recipient. A more appropriate response to a loved one who offers a gift is graceful acceptance with gratitude. Our salvation is a gift of God, not something of our own doing. HE saved us because of his mercy, not because of any righteous things that we have done. How much more we should accept with thanksgiving the gift that God has freely given to us) (NIV Life Application Study Bible)
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 03:59:15 +0000
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