Set free from sin
Day 558, Friday, Feb. 20
Romans 6:1-14
I have seen Paul described as the “apostle of the heart set free,” and freedom is one of his most defining teachings.
Slavery was an everyday reality in the Roman empire. It was familiar to people, and Paul frequently uses it as an image of his understanding of the human relationship with sin. This is not an endorsement of slavery—he always makes it clear that freedom from slavery, whether literal or figurative, is the desired condition. But social and legal change weren’t Paul’s main concerns. Expanding the more lasting kingdom of God was.
Freedom from spiritual slavery is, like freedom from legal slavery, ultimately achieved through death. It did not have to wait for our physical death, though. It was achieved through our sharing in the death of Jesus. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
We now have the opportunity to be free, if only we take it. “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

Friday meditation

Psalms 81:1-5
Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin the music, strike the timbrel, play the melodious harp and lyre.
Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival; this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. When God went out against Egypt, he established it as a statute for Joseph.

Prayer focus
Free us, Lord, from all that enslaves us.

-Rev. Mark Fleming