Reflections based on Romans 6:1–23.

Having taken a break over the Easter school holiday, it seems quite fitting that our first weekly devotional since celebrating Jesus’ victory over sin and death on Easter Sunday is all about us stepping into the life He won for us…

Paul starts our passage with a rhetorical question (‘Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?’) – but answers it quickly with a resounding ‘no’! If we continue to sin once we accept the gospel we are belittling both the seriousness of sin and the way that God dealt with it. The language used talks of us once being slaves to sin, but now slaves to God. We can find this language difficult but Paul is using the term ‘slave’ to underline the fact that we’ve been bought at a price (see v19 for his explanation). The paradox is that becoming slaves to God is the only way to true freedom.

The problem is, we all continue to sin – why? Often we struggle with sin because we don’t fully understand what Jesus did for us. He took us from one kingdom and made us alive in His. We don’t have to be enslaved to our old sinful nature. The battle can often be in our thinking. Jesus has already killed sin, but we are told in verse 11 to ‘count yourselves dead to sin’. We need to take hold of this. Sometimes that means practically taking hold of the thoughts in our heads (see Romans 12:2) that lead to sin and replacing them with biblical truth. 

Jerry Bridges, in his book The Pursuit of Holiness, explains: ‘It is our habit to live for ourselves and not for God. When we become Christians, we do not drop all this overnight. In fact, we will spend the rest of our lives putting off these habits and putting on habits of holiness’ (NavPress Publishing Group, 2003). It takes time and effort to change habits – but the key is in understanding that we are now in Christ. As Kevin de Young says, ‘The pursuit of holiness is…the fight to live out the life that has already been made alive in Christ’ (The Hole in our Holiness, Crossway, 2007).

Prayer: Lord, I can see that there is no need for me to give in to sin any longer, but that I need to cultivate habits in order to make right choices. Help me to start that today. Amen.