Daily Lesson for June 25, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans 6 verses 15 through 19:

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Do 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? 17But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

I am reading this this morning and suddenly Bob Dylan pops into my head:

“But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes

Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody”

Desmond Tutu said it a little differently. He said that in the struggle of South Africa the oppressed needed not only to be set free FROM Pharaoh, they also needed to be set free FOR the making of a more righteous nation.

Our freedom from the slavery of sin was bought at a price. We belong to God now. And our lives now belong to the building of God’s kingdom among us.

This is the hard part. It is one thing to be free from; it is quite another to be free for. Because to be free for means we have responsibility — responsibility for ourselves and also for others.

We are free.  But freedom never means anarchy, or the absolute freedom of the individual. We were set free from the dominion of death, but we now belong to the community of life. We were once slaves; but we are now citizens. And with our citizenship comes all the rights and also all the responsibilities of creating and living into a more just and righteous nation.

When we were slaves we had no say in what happened in and to us. But now that we have been set free, we do have a say.  We have responsibility; and we must take responsibility also.