Free at Last

DEVOTION
ROMANS
FREE AT LAST
Rom 6:15-18
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 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? 17 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. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. NIV
Indeed this surely has been the answer I have been looking for all along, I am set free from being a slave to sin, and I now have become a slave to righteousness. But wait, I am still a slave, so how have I been set free? I remember the old Bob Dylan song “you have to serve somebody, you either serve the Devil or serve the Lord, but you have to serve somebody”. Could he have hit the nail on the head? I really am not free to simply just be, to “do my own thing” so to speak, would that not be serving self? And if my heart is deceitfully wicked, well then I certainly would not be serving the Lord, I might say I was serving the Devil. It is a matter of offering my “self” to something, or someone in this case and I must decide who. Oh sure, I accepted Christ and Oh sure I can say I am “saved” and act in all the right ways on the outside where everyone else can view my “good deeds” but what about on the inside, where it really counts? If I am truthful with myself, can I really face the truth about myself? Have I, am I lying to me? Do I tell myself I am a good Christian, hoping to be that which I hope to be? If I have been set free from sin, then I am free. Could this be the set free from original sin, but not personal sin? That is have I been set free from the condemnation of the sin I was born with because of Adam and yet have to struggle with the freedom of the sin I commit because of my weakness and inability to resist certain temptations? Yet these verses do direct my attention straight to that point. I must offer myself to one or the other. It is my choice and I choice righteousness. I have been set free!