ROMANS 6:5-7

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin –  because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

TO PONDER

There are several words in Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek that are either translated as ‘sin’ or are meant to be understood as sin. Trespass, debt, rebellion, evil and wicked are some, but in the New Testament the cover-all word for sin is ‘ha-ma-tia’, which means to miss the mark. In Romans 3, St. Paul says, ‘all have missed the mark (sinned) and fallen short of the glory of God’. The mark that we want to hit is the new life we have in Christ Jesus. A life that is dead to the old self and now alive and free in and with Jesus through his crucifixion and resurrection. By faith, your old self was nailed to the cross with Jesus and died with him. By faith, your new self was raised to life with Jesus in his resurrection. This is the gift we receive when we are born again through God’s gift of baptism. Baptism, of course, is daily dying to our old life and daily rising with Jesus into the new. Living the new life is the deliberate daily discipline of a disciple of Jesus. 

In this daily discipline, we choose to live in peace and unity with God and with one another by allowing God to be our strength, our guide, our hope and our freedom.

PRAYER: Father, help me daily to surrender myself to your loving and all sufficient grace, so that I may freely live to love and serve you and those who serve others. Amen.

Today's devotion written by David Schuppan, LifeWay Illawarra