"Be holy, because I am holy" - God (1 Peter 1:16; Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:7)
God has really been speaking to me about this very subject. As I have been asking Him, what does it mean? How is that obtained? He says to me, crucify your flesh daily. Again I ask, what is that? He tells me that I must say no to the things that I want and often to what might come "naturally" to me. This morning is no different, today He took me to Romans 6, the theme of this passage for me is what you give yourself to you will become a slave of!
1-3 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
I think we hear God loves you so much that we just assume that there is nothing wrong with continuing to live the same old life we did before the covenant. The truth is that He does love, so much He came down, lived among us, lived just like us to die for us so we could live like Him! His grace isn't given to just continue to live a life of sin, nor is it there to walk around in arrogance. His grace is there so we can move from glory to glory in maturity, the consistent application of elementary principals. So let us drown every other lover under a fresh baptism in His grace and put our faces to God, that we would have the privilege to be bond servants of Christ!
15-18 So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19 I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
Let's sell out and become slaves of the Most High!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment