Thrive Creative Journaling Devotional Bible - Flipbook - Page 20
ROMANS 7 . . . page 1402
body as an instrument to do what is right for
the glory of God. 14Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the
freedom of God’s grace.
15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us
free from the law, does that mean we can go
on sinning? Of course not! 16Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever
you choose to obey? You can be a slave to
sin, which leads to death, or you can choose
to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17Thank God! Once you were slaves of
sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this
teaching we have given you. 18Now you are
free from your slavery to sin, and you have
become slaves to righteous living.
Dear God,
Give Your daughter so much
faith and trust that nothing
will keep her from believing
that You are bigger than
anything that tries to get in
the way of Your plan for her.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
19Because of the weakness of your human
nature, I am using the illustration of slavery
to help you understand all this. Previously,
you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and
lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin.
Now you must give yourselves to be slaves
to righteous living so that you will become
holy.
20When you were slaves to sin, you were
free from the obligation to do right. 21And
what was the result? You are now ashamed
of the things you used to do, things that end
in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free
from the power of sin and have become
slaves of God. Now you do those things
that lead to holiness and result in eternal
life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the
free gift of God is eternal life through Christ
Jesus our Lord.
No Longer Bound to the Law
Now, dear brothers and sisters*—you
who are familiar with the law—don’t you
know that the law applies only while a person is living? 2For example, when a woman
marries, the law binds her to her husband as
long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of
marriage no longer apply to her. 3So while
her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man.
But if her husband dies, she is free from that
law and does not commit adultery when she
remarries.
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is
the point: You died to the power of the law
when you died with Christ. And now you are
united with the one who was raised from
the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5When we were
controlled by our old nature,* sinful desires
were at work within us, and the law aroused
these evil desires that produced a harvest of
sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6But now we
have been released from the law, for we died
to it and are no longer captive to its power.
Now we can serve God, not in the old way of
obeying the letter of the law, but in the new
way of living in the Spirit.
7
God’s Law Reveals Our Sin
then, am I suggesting that the law of
God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was
the law that showed me my sin. I would
never have known that coveting is wrong if
the law had not said, “You must not covet.”*
8 But sin used this command to arouse all
kinds of covetous desires within me! If there
were no law, sin would not have that power.
9At one time I lived without understanding
the law. But when I learned the command
not to covet, for instance, the power of sin
came to life, 10and I died. So I discovered that
the law’s commands, which were supposed
to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.
11 Sin took advantage of those commands
and deceived me; it used the commands to
kill me. 12But still, the law itself is holy, and
its commands are holy and right and good.
13But how can that be? Did the law, which
is good, cause my death? Of course not!
Sin used what was good to bring about my
condemnation to death. So we can see how
terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
7 Well
7:1 Greek brothers; also in 7:4. 7:5 Greek When we were in the flesh. 7:7 Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21.
