Romans chapter 6 verses 19-22 (NIV)
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. 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 of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
These verses made me think of what it meant to be a slave. Slaves in Paul’s day couldn’t pick and choose what they would do and what they wouldn’t. They had to follow their master’s instructions to the letter. The Romans knew all about that.
Paul tells us that as Christians we should now consider ourselves as slaves to God. But how often do we completely follow God’s instructions without question? How often do we pick and choose what we will do?
If we really develop the attitude that obeys God without question. Paul tells us that doing so leads to holiness. And doesn’t holiness make us more like God. Food for thought indeed.
Dear Lord,
Paul isn’t promoting the negative aspects of slavery, but he does show us what we can learn from what it meant to be a slave. Sometimes I think we squander our ‘freedom’. Help me to develop the attitude that obeys You without question. I ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen.