A New Master

The Gospel teaches us that through Jesus we have complete forgiveness. All of our sins; past, present, and future, are covered by grace. So what is to keep us from sinning? What would keep us from indulging in a little vengeance, greed, or jealousy now and then if we know we can "get away with it?" Or what would keep us from doing something much worse if we know we can be forgiven? Romans 6:15-23 gives us the answer by showing us four realities about sin and our relationship to it.

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Here’s our passage) What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. For 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 to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- Romans 6:15-23