Monday May 4, 2020

Your Daily Dose of Inspiration:

Romans 6:16-23 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (17) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, (18) and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (19) I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. (20) For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. (21) But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. (22) But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. (23) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If there is anything cherished and valued among Americans, it is freedom. That word is virtually sacred in our language. We express it in mottos, songs, movies, and books. We celebrate it with fireworks, re-enactments, and lots of food. It is the principle on which our nation was founded; it is the dream; the American way; and we uphold it as the ultimate human right and moral good. So strongly do we feel about the rightness of freedom, that we will fight and die to defend it, whether it be ours at stake, or someone else’s. Those without freedom we consider oppressed, and their leaders, oppressors. It is expressed in our nation’s founding documents that every human being has the right to their own freedom, and that is why our greatest national shame is that one portion of our society kept it from another. It is a powerful principle, a good and moral value, and we are right to cherish and defend it.

However, the idea of personal freedom has become such an ingrained part of our cultural mentality, that I am afraid we may misapply this freedom to our relationship with God. We celebrate the fact that through Christ’s death and resurrection we have been set free from sin, but we were freed for a purpose. We were not left to wander through life according to our own whims and desires. No, we move from one master to another. Without Christ we were slaves to our sinful nature, given over to every desire of our flesh without recourse to righteousness. The Law was given, in part, in order that our eyes might be open to this fact. When we realize our slavery and call upon Jesus to free us, we do not call only upon a savior, but a Lord. In our opening verse, Paul identified only two states of being: a slave to sin, or a slave to righteousness. There is no middle ground where a person may exist without a master. Therefore, there is no liberty from sin, without becoming a slave of Christ.

-Jared Freeman, “Slaves Of Christ”