Set Free From Sin
For sin shall not be
your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
What
then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Don't 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? 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. You
have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
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.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?
Those things result in death! 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. For the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans
6:14-23
Some time ago people
were really worried about the H1N1 virus and what it might potentially do.
Viruses are living organisms that need a host to survive and wreak their havoc.
In some cases the viruses can be there for years before the host is even aware
of it.
In a similar way, sin
needs a host to stay alive. By themselves, sins such as pride, greed, anger,
and selfishness are mere words. But when sin overpowers a human host, it works
to destroy it for as long as the host is alive.
Isn’t a great comfort
for you as you step out today into a world infected by the “virus” of sin?
Sin is
the disease, Christ is the cure.
Our Daily Bread –