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Slaves to Righteousness

Words of Faith Final

Slaves to Righteousness
Words of Faith 9-1-2021
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2021
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL
www.faithfellowshipweb.com
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Romans 6

   [18] You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. [19] I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. 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. [20] When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. [21] What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! [22] 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. [23] For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    How can you be a "slave to righteousness" and really be free? Even the Apostle had to admit that talk of being "enslaved" to righteousness and to God is not correct in one sense because God does not hold His children in bondage.
    But the word "slavery" appropriately describes our relationship to sin and Satan before we are saved by grace born anew by the Spirit. So, Paul used the term "slavery" to contrast the believer's relationship though he apologized for putting this in human terms.
    Paul describes this in "human fashion" because "you are weak in your natural selves." Apparently, Paul felt there was a feeble spiritual perception among the Roman believers. As unsaved Romans, they had offered their bodies to sin and wickedness, which is literally "lawlessness." Before knowing Christ, they had voluntarily become enslaved! But Paul urged the believers now to offer themselves as "slaves to righteousness," leading to holiness in contrast to their former impurity.
     Paul was absolutely clear that slavery to sin and to righteousness are mutually exclusive. But even more important is the superiority of being enslaved to righteousness and God. The "fruit" of enslavement to sin is shame, but even worse, "the end of those things is death." The fruit of responding to the Gospel by faith and wholly accepting Jesus Christ is that all these things are reversed for an individual. A believer is now set free from sin and has been enslaved to God with the result that he has the benefit of holiness.
    The wages of sin, literally the "soldier's pay," is death. This death is eternal separation from God in hell, in which unbelievers suffer conscious torment forever. These are the wages they have earned and deserve because of their sin. By contrast, the gift or "grace-gift" of God is eternal life. Eternal life is a gift that cannot be earned or deserved. It is NOT a "soldier's pay."
    When we see this contrast, the choice is abundantly clear. We need Jesus, but even more, we need the benefit of becoming a slave to righteousness. A slave to righteousness is alive to God, will have eternal life, and does not let sin master them.

    Father God, I want to be a slave to righteousness. Thank You for Your offer that I might be saved by Your grace alone. Thank You for the privilege to walk as a slave to righteousness and know the benefit of life in You. In Jesus' Name.

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© Jeffrey D. Hoy 2021
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy - Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA)        
2820 Business Center Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32940 (321)-259-7200
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail, excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2021 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.