August Reading from The Message

Would you return the greatest gift you’ve ever been given? None of us could fathom giving up the best thing we’ve ever received, yet we do this with Jesus’ gift every day. Romans 6 tells us that to fully embrace the freedom from sin that’s been bought with Jesus’ blood, our old selves must be laid to rest. Along with the future hope of eternal life, we get to experience a new life of holiness right here, right now.  

So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.

Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead! —into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

Scripture Insight

The New Life of Holiness

In Romans 6, Paul moves to a new concern. He has been writing about God’s life; now he’s writing about our lives, about the new lives we live on the basis of justification.

But one thing he has said has created a problem before he even begins this new subject. In emphasizing the action of God, Paul has said that God does everything and we do nothing. He has excluded from justification any work we might do or any merit we might claim. No scheme of self-improvement, no mystical experience, no high-minded religion is worth anything. God did everything on his own initiative and treated all people, religious and pagan, equally. As sinners.

Having said this, how can Paul then tell us to do something? If nothing we do makes any difference, why do anything? If our sin doesn’t turn God away from us, why not sin? If nothing we do can make God withdraw his offer of salvation, why not live it up?

Paul answers by stating that the new life of holiness is the sequel to the act of justification. From this point on, every sin is a contradiction of who we are, and therefore is destructive to the new life growing within us. Sin for the believer involves personal injury, not judicial penalty. It affects our everyday life but not our eternal life. All our sin against God was taken care of on the cross. It has all been dealt with. My sins from now on are failures to live out my new life.

The Message of the Bible By Women, For Women

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320 topical devotions written by women of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds, and vocations,
Special Biblical section introductions highlighting the needs and interests of women,
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