Romans 6:17-18 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
These verses celebrate the change that Jesus can make in a person’s life. Slavery to sin does not need to be the path we take. There is a way of escape in Jesus Christ. The key is to obey form the heart. In other words, a person must make a decision of faith. The matter is deep down in the place of our will, the place we must choose to walk with God. Another way to say this is our awareness and consciousness. We must make a choice in our mind. Our thinking is the issue and needs to be transformed. We have been taught the gospel. We have heard it and believe it to be true. If that is the case, then we must follow through and grow in this good news. We have been captured by the grace of God through Christ and have come under his leadership. This is the declaration of freedom. But it is not a freedom to do as we please, because if that was the case, we would descend back into sin. We must change one master with another master. We must follow a new Lord who shows us the path of righteousness. To be a slave to righteousness is a different kind of obligation. We do what is right because we fear the Lord by placing ourselves on the altar of consecration. We become God’s instruments, made righteous by the blood of Jesus and being used for God’s purposes.
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