The Wages of Sin is Death

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Scripture: Romans 6:19-23 (NIV)

19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves 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 of 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.

Devotion:

            This scripture starts out with a warning. A warning to no longer be slaves to sin. Paul encourages us to become slaves to righteousness. We in the 21st century do not like to think of ourselves as slaves to anyone or anything, however, unless we choose to be captured and enslaved to righteousness we will go about as slaves to sin which leads to death. As the old Bob Dylan song went “Your gonna serve somebody”.

            The good news is that you get to choose who you will serve. None of us is so trapped or entangled in sin that we can’t get out of sin’s grasp. (With God’s help of course.) If we don’t get free of sin’s entangling cords, we will live a life of disobedience to God and get ourselves into major trouble. Even though you are a slave you still receive wages, and those wages are eternal death in hell. Sin is a deceptive master. It promises life doing whatever our heart desires, but in the end sin delivers death and an eternal life of suffering in hell with the devil and his demons.

            Once we come to Christ for salvation, we find ourselves more and more living a life that brings eternal life to our souls. Where we once lived a life of selfishness, we now find ourselves living to serve others. Under the control Satan we were ashamed of the things that we did following the devil's commands. Now we have been set free from the desire to do the things that lead to shame and death. Now we live to bring the life that we are happy with doing the things that bring eternal life.

            Let nothing stop you then from desiring eternal life with God. Your freedom from sin and death is permanent. So, you can now live for Christ bringing his life into the world through your righteous life and life giving words. Do not be discouraged if you slip up and sin occasionally God is ready to forgive you and empower you to live a more perfect life in his kingdom. Let us seek, therefore, to live our lives as pleasing to God as we know how.

Prayer:

            Lord God, you have told us that the wages of sin in death as a warning to us. Help us seek the Holy Spirit to empower us to live into the eternal life you have promised us. Help us to do the works that lead to eternal life both for us and our neighbors. Protect us from the deceptions that the evil powers of this age seek to impose upon us. Let us live lives of joy and freedom in Christ Jesus. Thank you for the gift of eternal life you have given us. Let us never take it for granted or forget it. Let us always lead lives that glorify you. Amen.

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