Good morning. Sometimes Paul likes to say the same basic
thing two or three different ways to help you understand. Just as you presented
your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further
lawlessness, so present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in
sanctification. The choice is up to us as to which one we present ourselves.
Just as lawlessness begets more lawlessness; so righteousness begets more
righteousness. Legally we are sanctified at rebirth; but it takes a lifetime to
work it out in our lives. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard
to righteousness. What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which
you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. People of the
world are not ashamed of what they are doing; in fact they rejoice in them and
encourage others to join them. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved
to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome,
eternal life. People of the world, and too many Christians, live in the now;
they are not concerned about what will happen in the future as a result of
their actions today. Father we choose today to present ourselves to You for
righteousness’ sake. We forsake the sin that so easily entangles us.
Merry Christmas!
Good morning, and Merry Christmas! We are going to digress and look at the first Christmas. This was something that had been foretold centuries before; and yet people still did not understand what was going to happen. They were thinking that the Messiah was going to come as an adult and was going to re-establish the nation of Israel above all other nations. They were not expecting Him to come as a baby, supposedly born to a carpenter and placed in a manger. Many things had to happen at precisely the right time. You had to have the right person to be His mother and the right person to be His supposed father. You had to have a reason for them to be in Bethlehem on the night He was born – the census. It had to be when shepherds would be in the field near Bethlehem watching their flocks. And just at the right time – an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them...
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