Amazing God of second chances, make new the possibilities for discipleship in the life of this dear reader; in Christ Jesus I pray, amen.
Our text for today comes from Romans 6:12 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. 13 Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time - remember, you've been raised from the dead! - into God's way of doing things. 14 Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. 15 So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? 16 Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. 17 But thank God you've started listening to a new master, 18 one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! 19 I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing - not caring about others, not caring about God - the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? 20 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. 21 But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. 22 But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! 23 Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. (The Message)
Thanks be to God, it has been about fifteen or so years since I've had a drop of coffee. I love coffee. I love the smell of coffee. The idea of exotic "latte, matte, whateeheck" names of coffee I hear ordered in the fancy $5 a cup stores. But coffee was not agreeing with me and I discovered that I could not walk past a pot of coffee. Being a solo pastor with an administrative assistant, the coffee brewed every morning I knew was (or thought) was just for me, so I felt compelled to drink it all. Pretty soon that one pot was not enough, so another one was brewed and I realized I was drinking something like 12-15 cups of coffee a day. My body was also telling me that as well. So I prayed and asked God to give me the strength to quit. And thanks to God, I quit. It was the two most miserable weeks in my life quitting coffee just like that. I had headaches and headaches that had headaches and my body was giving me pain and misery for having quit something that it had grown accustomed to. Shall I tell you it's been years since I've had a flour tortilla? (Smile).
Sin is just like coffee if we're not careful. This passage really puts it into perspective about what sin can do. The title for today's devotional comes from this passage and it speaks of the positive side of giving up sin. We can be whole. We can be healed. We can be put together once again if we ask God to help us be free and forgiven of our sins. And I love what follows, "More and more of life on the way"! Sin can be like an addiction. We can think of wonderful reasons why we need to be "doing" this particular thing, not being honest with ourselves, that it is a sin. We will say, like true addicts, that we're not hurting anybody and think we're immune from the hurt and harm that comes to us. Wrong. That last verse in this passage sums it up, "Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death." The alternate is what God offers: A whole, healed, put-together life. Right now.
What are you waiting for?
PRAYER: Lord, You above all, know how subtle and deceiving sin can be. You more than me, know the harm and destruction that can and does come my way if I don't repent and walk away from sin. Help me. Free me and forgive me. Send to me that fullness of life that can come right now. I ask this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord.
Eradio Valverde
