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WEEK FIVE: Complete Surrender
Total Availability to God
Focus: Dead to sin, alive to God.
Reflection: What would full availability to God look like in my life?
Romans 6
Baptised into Christ1What can we say in the face of such wonderful love and grace? Shall we continue to sin so that God will be even more gracious to us?2Certainly not! What a suggestion! We have died to sin; so can we continue to live in ways that displease God?3Surely you understand that all of us who have been baptised live now in Christ Jesus. Through our baptism we were made one with His death.4Our old sinful lives were even buried with Him. You were made one with His death and burial so that, as Christ was raised from the dead through the power of God's glory, you are now one with Him in His risen life.5It is simple; if we have been united with Him in His death, we shall also certainly share in His resurrection.6You can be sure that your old self, lived outside of Christ, was crucified with Him, freeing you from the control of sin.7Now you are no longer a slave to sin, for your death on the cross freed you from your sinful nature!8Now, because we died with Christ we believe that we will continue to live with Him.9Listen, it is clear that because Christ was raised from the dead, it is not possible for Him ever to die. Death can have absolutely no influence or control over Him.10He only needed to die once, and when He did so He dealt with the power of sin once and for all. Now He lives to reveal the truth of God and His amazing grace.11In a similar way, realise that you can consider yourself to have died to sin, but that you are now raised to an entirely new life that you can enjoy through your unity with Christ as you live for God's glory!Freed from the power of sin12So do not allow sin to reign in you now, no matter how much your body may sometimes crave for self-indulgence. Do not obey such evil desires.13Do not use the parts of your body for sinful purposes. Do not let them be instruments of sin. No, offer yourselves wholeheartedly to God, as those who have been carried through death into a new life. Then you will offer the parts of your body to God for His purposes. They will be instruments for doing what is right.14Sin is not your master any longer. Neither do you live under religious laws, but in the grace that God has supplied for you.15Do you really think, as some suggest, that this means we can sin as much as we want because we are not under law? What a ridiculous suggestion! That would be a complete distortion of the truth.16Surely you can see that you are a slave to whatever controls your life! If you offer yourself to sin, you are a slave of sin and will obey your sinful instincts. Such a lifestyle leads to spiritual death. On the other hand, offering yourself to live in obedience to God leads to a life of righteousness.17I thank God that although you used to be slaves of sin, this is no longer the case. For you have obeyed wholeheartedly the teaching of God's truth that was revealed to you, and you are to be guardians of that truth.18For you have been liberated from sin and can now think of yourselves as slaves of doing what is right because you belong to God!19I am trying to put this in practical terms. You see, I know how weak you are naturally. That is true of all of us. Yes, you used to be slaves of impurity because of what you did with your bodies. Sin was on the increase in your lives. But now you use your bodies in the right way, you will do what is right, living holy lives that please our holy God.20When you were living as slaves of sin, righteousness certainly did not control your actions.21What reward did you gain from all that sin? Why, you are now ashamed of those things you once did! You wish you had never done them, and now you understand that all sin leads to spiritual death!22However, now that you are liberated from that past life of sin, you can live as God's slave. That is not bondage, for it leads to holiness and eternal life as your inheritance.23You have seen for yourself that sin pays wages: eternal death and separation from God. But God's gift to you is eternal life that is yours in Christ Jesus, your Lord.
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