Freedom to Obey God (Day 13)

Read Romans 6:15-23
 
   To obey with all your heart means to give yourself fully to God, to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind (Matthew 22:37). And yet so often our efforts to know and obey God’s commands can best be described as halfhearted. How do you rate your heart’s obedience? God wants to give you the power to obey Him with all your heart. 
   The new teaching given to them is the Good News that Jesus died for their sins and was raised to give them new life. Many believe that this refers to the early church’s statement of faith found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. 
 
   All people have a master and pattern themselves after him. Without Jesus, we would have no choice; we would be enslaved to sin, and the results would be guilt, suffering and separation from God. Thanks to Jesus, however, we can now choose God as our Master. Following Him, we can enjoy new life and learn how to work for Him. Are you still serving your first master, sin? Or have you chosen God? 
 
   It is impossible to be neutral. Every person has a master: either God or sin. A Christian is not someone who cannot sin but someone who is no longer a slave to sin. He or she belongs to God. You are free to choose between two masters: sin or Jesus Christ. The wages of sin is eternal death in hell. That is all you can expect or hope for in life without God. By choosing Christ as your Master, you receive His gift of eternal life: new life with God that begins on earth and continues forever with God. What choice have you made?  
   Eternal life is a gift from God. If it is a gift, then it is something that we earn, nor something that must be paid back. Consider the foolishness of someone who receives a gift given out of love and then offers to pay for it. A gift cannot be purchased by the recipient. A more appropriate response to a loved one who offers a gift is graceful acceptance with gratitude. Our salvation is a gift of God, not something of our own doing (Ephesians 2). He saved us because of His mercy, not because of any good things that we have done (Titus 3). How much more we should accept with thanksgiving the gift that God has freely given to us.