Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace. Romans 6:14
When I was in college, one of my favorite professors chose to give my entire class a 100 on our first exam to show us grace. The problem, however, was that I made an 89 on the exam, which was the fourth-highest grade in the class, and I was proud of my grade. If anyone asked me what grade I made on my exam, my answer was the same. "I made an 89, but my professor gave me a 100." In doing so, I eventually realized that I was still holding on to the grade I earned and had not fully accepted my professor's grace. I was prideful because I had made the fourth-highest grade in the class, and I was resentful that other people who had not studied as well as I had and done poorly on the exam had the same grade now as me. Refusing to accept grace negatively impacts us and our relationships, and it leads to bitterness. If we want to improve our marriages and any other relationship in our lives, we must accept God's grace.
In Romans 6, after explaining God's great grace in offering us eternal life, the Apostle Paul calls readers to live as recipients of grace. Because of God's grace, believers are no longer slaves to sin. Instead, they are alive in Christ. Knowing this, Paul urges readers to live as those who have been shown grace. He calls them to live as people who are no longer under the power of sin. After all, after they have been shown such grace, why would they live as their old selves?
What about you? If you are a follower of Christ, you have been shown great grace. Have you fully accepted God's grace, or are you still trying to earn His favor? I urge you, my friend, to fully accept God's grace, knowing that it cannot be earned. Live as one who has been changed by the grace of God. Accepting God's grace will change your perspective and aid your relationships. It rids us of pride and resentful feelings when others receive the same grace and allows us to extend grace more easily.
Take some time today to journal. In your journal or notebook, answer this question: Have I truly accepted God's grace, or am I still trying to earn it? If you find that you are still trying to earn God's grace, ask the Lord to help you embrace His grace rather than trying to earn it through your performance. If you find that you have fully embraced God's grace, your challenge is to tell someone your two-minute story of your salvation and the grace God has shown you.
Read Romans 6:12-23 (NLT)
Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
©2024 Sagebrush Church
