In The Word
Read: Romans 6:15-7:6
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one 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 have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of 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.
Released From the Law, Bound to Christ
7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
There is an old spiritual song that begins, “Free at last, free at last I thank God I’m free at last.” As you read the text today you can almost hear that ringing in the background. Paul was encouraging the believers in Rome to embrace the freedom that they had in Jesus Christ. They, like many believers today, did not fully understand or embrace this truth in their spirit. Therefore, they kept being enslaved to the sin of their former lives. Jesus had set them free! Paul wanted them to experience that freedom to the fullest. After all, they had been set free from their former relationship with the law to enter into a new one with Jesus. It would be this new relationship that would bear fruit for God (Romans 6:4).
Many believers say they want freedom from sin but keep running back to their former slavery. This should not be. We have been delivered from the power of sin and death. To return to our former master means that we betray our Savior. As hard as that sounds, the reality remains. We are no longer slaves but co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). It was Jesus that paid the ransom for our freedom. He delivered us from darkness to light, from death to life. Therefore the anthem of our lives should be, “Free at last, free at last I thank God I’m free at last.” Dearly beloved, you are not obligated to sin. Embrace your freedom and live it to the fullness of God.