Merry Christmas!

 Good morning. OK so we are not under law but under grace. Does that mean we can do whatever we want? Paul says: shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? Grace is not a “free pass“ to do anything that you want. If you do sin, grace means that it’s not all over – that you won’t go to heaven. It’s kind of like with Adam. God said that in the day you eat from the tree, you will die. Eve ate from the tree, and she did not drop over dead. It gave him the boldness to try also. You sin, don’t immediately go to the bad place, so you think why not sin again - I can just ask for forgiveness. After a while, you are hooked and don’t even care whether or not you are forgiven for doing it. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Sin makes you do things that inwardly you don’t want to do (that’s part of the conflict in Romans chapter 7 which comes after this one). When you are a slave of righteousness, you inwardly want to do what is righteous. Father thank You that we are slaves of righteousness. We truly want to do what is pleasing in Your sight continuously.