Released

DEVOTION
ROMANS
RELEASED
Rom 7:1-6
7:1 Do you not know, brothers — for I am speaking to men who know the law — that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. 4 So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. NIV

It would surely seem a simply concept to grab a hold of, I am no longer married to the law, not because the law died, but because I did. It would also seem rather impossible for me to be married to both the law and the Lord thus being an adulterer in a certain sense. I suppose for the sake of self discussion, whenever I yearn and yield to some of the ways of the world, I could be committing adultery, but here it is all about the law. If I am trying to live according to the law, the law which would certainly include any set of written rules and regulations such as those devised by various denominations, I am certain to fail. Besides, how can I do that if I am dead, dead to them anyway? This is what I am reading here in these verses. So then I can have nothing to do with the law and all of its restrictions, for in doing so, all I can ever produce is death. But because I died and was released from that relationship I can have nothing more to do with it. I was raised from the dead so I could have a new relationship with God and thus because of it, I can produce that which is for Him. This is truly living by the Spirit, reading his Word, listening to His voice and allowing myself to be influenced by Him in such a way I reflect his character to others. Now, should I just live any way I like? Should I go ahead and do anything I want to? No, not at all, I should live according to the law of love and all that encompasses. But this is certainly not living by the law of men, but rather of God.