Romans 6

Read this in NIV this morning and would’ve given a fingernail to have the message translation handy.
Reading with a couple of gals, one of whom has never read the bible before. Have to confess the excitement in me doing it with her. Being given the privilege of reading with someone who has wanted to, but never felt given permission to do so.
Having been raised Catholic I can identify with that feeling….that I had to wait for, listen to someone else’s interpretation of this book.
And now, the connection that it brings me to my Father. I just long to watch others become free in that.
But in the reading this morning, Paul so wordy. I love his passion and love his story but if you don’t know any of that, reading a chapter from Romans can be daunting.
So it was cool to watch other gals give her context, relate to her the Paul they know from reading and for all of us to realize or begin to discover the freedom we have in Christ ....to share that. Not to beat anyone up with scripture but to really just …….share what it’s done, is doing in us.
And for crying out loud that it is doing ‘something’ is undeniable, unexplainable maybe but undeniable nonetheless. So to no longer be stuck on an escalator but not pointing fingers at anyone who might be…..
What Is True Freedom?
15-18 So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19 I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
20-21 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22-23 But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.