Romans 6:17-18 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."
This seems to be one of the major themes of scripture when you look at it. Paul makes it clear by the way that he speaks about sin. That the believer is the one who truly has a choice between either living in sin or living in righteousness. Before we did not have a choice because we only had the flesh. The flesh is hostile to God and quite incapable of following after God. But, the believer is now no longer under the chains of law. We have to opportunity to make better choices to live for God. We are to use the rest of our time on earth to do just that and to live for God and not for our flesh.
When you do a study of the idea of being free from sin you find this idea both in Jesus words and also in Peter an Paul's writing. In John 8:32 it says, "and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The again in 1 Peter 2:16 it says that we are to act as free men, to use your freedom to be bondslaves of God. Galatians 5:1 says that it was for freedom that Christ set us free. And again in Galatians 5:13 you were called to freedom, therefore, we are not to use this as an opportunity to sin, but in love serve one another.
You see this idea going back and forth, freedom and slavery. To Paul, we are always slaves, either to God or to sin. The end result is either sin resulting in death or God resulting in righteousness and sanctification and eternal life. The believer has a choice who he is enslaved to. That is the mark of someone who is truly free. The truly free person has choices where the slave does not have any choices. The christian wears chains by choice and not because he or she has to.
There is a story about elephants, how when they are little they are chained on their leg and a stake is put into the ground. The little elephant pulls and pulls and eventually gives up trying to get away. Even after the adult elephant has grown it will no longer try to get away even though it easily could because it has been conditioned to think it cannot get away. For the believer, we can be conditioned to think that sin is still master over us and we cannot get away. But, we are actually no longer under the bondage of sin. We now have a freedom because of what Christ has done to give up those sins, to repent and walk away. But, we can chose to be under bondage and to act enslaved. The sad part about this, is that millions of christians still act as though they are enslaved. They believe the lie of the old chains that say we cannot get away and the believer stops trying. When God has not designed us to live that way any longer.
This seems to be one of the major themes of scripture when you look at it. Paul makes it clear by the way that he speaks about sin. That the believer is the one who truly has a choice between either living in sin or living in righteousness. Before we did not have a choice because we only had the flesh. The flesh is hostile to God and quite incapable of following after God. But, the believer is now no longer under the chains of law. We have to opportunity to make better choices to live for God. We are to use the rest of our time on earth to do just that and to live for God and not for our flesh.
When you do a study of the idea of being free from sin you find this idea both in Jesus words and also in Peter an Paul's writing. In John 8:32 it says, "and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The again in 1 Peter 2:16 it says that we are to act as free men, to use your freedom to be bondslaves of God. Galatians 5:1 says that it was for freedom that Christ set us free. And again in Galatians 5:13 you were called to freedom, therefore, we are not to use this as an opportunity to sin, but in love serve one another.
You see this idea going back and forth, freedom and slavery. To Paul, we are always slaves, either to God or to sin. The end result is either sin resulting in death or God resulting in righteousness and sanctification and eternal life. The believer has a choice who he is enslaved to. That is the mark of someone who is truly free. The truly free person has choices where the slave does not have any choices. The christian wears chains by choice and not because he or she has to.
There is a story about elephants, how when they are little they are chained on their leg and a stake is put into the ground. The little elephant pulls and pulls and eventually gives up trying to get away. Even after the adult elephant has grown it will no longer try to get away even though it easily could because it has been conditioned to think it cannot get away. For the believer, we can be conditioned to think that sin is still master over us and we cannot get away. But, we are actually no longer under the bondage of sin. We now have a freedom because of what Christ has done to give up those sins, to repent and walk away. But, we can chose to be under bondage and to act enslaved. The sad part about this, is that millions of christians still act as though they are enslaved. They believe the lie of the old chains that say we cannot get away and the believer stops trying. When God has not designed us to live that way any longer.
