Sin Cont'd...

Romans 6...

6:2 “…we died to sin”

6:4 “…we too may live a new life”

6:6 “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, what we should no longer be slaves to sin”

6:7 “because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

6:10 Christ our model “The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

6:17 “But thanks be to God that, though you used be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

And the question of the day from 6:21:

"What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?"

Sin is temporary gratification...very temporary.

John 4:13 & 14 "'Everyone who drinks this water will be thristy again, but whoever drink that water I give him will never thrist. Indeed, the water I give him will bedome in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' "

Sin

Reading Romans1:21-32 I came across the following commentary:

"...They soon invent 'gods' that are convenient projections of their own selfish plans and decrees.  These gods may be wooden figures, but they may also be goals or things we pursue such as money, power, or comfort..."

"...God gives them over or permits them to experience the naturalconsequences of their sin. Once caught in the downward spiral, no one can pull himself or herself out. Sinners must trust Christ alone to put them on the path of escape..."

"...in time we will become slaves to our own rebellious choices - we will lose our freedom not to sin.  Does life without God look like freedom to you? Look more closely. There is no worse slavery than slavery to sin."

This opened my eyes!  I feel as if I am in control - even of my sin.  But am I?  In Romans 7 Paul speaks about struggling with sin. 

     "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do,  I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living  in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do  - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to , it is no longer I who do it, but is sin living in me that does it.
    
     "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, wagin war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my mebers.  What a wretched mand I am Who will rescue me from this body of death: Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!

     "So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

So is there any hope?  Go on reading Romans 8...