Today’s reading: Jeremiah 30; Romans 6
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
It is easy to think of sin as freedom. God has rules and boundaries that He says we should live within, but sin has no restrictions on us. So how would I rather live? Would I rather be a slave to God’s rules and boundaries, or would I rather be free to live and operate however I want to?
What Paul points out in Romans 6 is that sin is not freedom, it’s just a different, and much worse, kind of slavery.
We talked about this a few days ago, but when God sets rules and boundaries that He tells us to live within, it is not to kill our fun and sap the joy out of life, but it is because He created us and He knows how life works best. When God tells us how we should live, it is like Him telling a fish it should live in water; that is how He designed it to live and operate, and for it to decide differently and try to live on land would be to it’s great harm and ultimate death. God is not saying, “I will be pleased with you if you go live a sad and boring life,” He is saying, “I want you to live the most joyful and fulfilling life possible, and this is how that will happen.”
When sin tries to present itself as freedom, that is nothing but lies and deception. When we exercise our freedom to live outside of God’s design for us, we do it to our own harm, and we enslave ourselves to what we chase after with our “freedom.”
Think about it, have you ever had something in your life that you felt shame and guilt about, but couldn’t seem to change no matter how much you wanted to? You want to just go out with your friends for a drink, but every time you do you get plastered, do something stupid, and make a fool out of yourself. You want to be patient and gentle with your kids, but then they do something stupid and irresponsible and you fly off the handle at them. You want to handle stress in a healthy way, but when the pressure starts to ramp up you gorge yourself on desserts or scroll through Amazon for a bit of retail therapy. You want to have a healthy view of relationships and sex, but every time you’re feeling lonely you can’t help but turn to porn to satiate that feeling. You can’t not doom scroll social media or binge that next show (or probably both at the same time) when you feel the first twinge of boredom. You can’t not, you can’t not, you can’t not…
Sin markets itself as freedom, but then enslaves you when you indulge it. If you can’t not do something, is that really freedom? Yes, it’s “freedom” from living within God’s design, but freedom from God’s way of life is not ultimate freedom, but slavery to sin.
Paul’s point is that our choice is not between slavery and freedom, but is a choice of what master we want to follow. One master, obedience to the Lord, leads us to a life of joy, fulfillment, and righteousness, and the other master leads to shame, destruction, and ultimately death.
Who would you rather have as a master…?
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