Good morning. We are back in Romans. This does not apply to everyone because there may have been a short time before someone became a Christian: Paul talks about that just as we presented ourselves as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness, so we should now present ourselves as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification. We are positionally sanctified in our spirits when we become Christians; but there is a lifetime of working out that sanctification in our souls. We don't act like we are sanctified right away. We should be approaching it though, as we grow spiritually. He then asks what benefit did we get from doing those things before, the outcome of which is death. Now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death (they are literally working themselves to death), but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Too many people in the world want to work for their salvation. Even after they become Christians, they still want to work for their salvation. If we could work for our salvation, we would not have needed Christ to die on the cross for our sins. Now in the following he was talking about the Law but it's true of all of us: for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. He then talks about all the problems he had - which some people think he is talking about before he became a Christian, while others think it was while he was a Christian. Chapter 8 begins with a really wonderful verse: there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Can I get an amen for that? For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Jesus condemned sin in the flesh so that we do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Therefore we set our minds on the things of the Holy Spirit. And the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Father thank You that the reader is walking in the Spirit. He/she is victorious over sin and death. He/she has life and peace and reigns eternally.

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