S157P6 – Life after death: freedom starting now
Rom. 6:17-19
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
We have a great hope for a perfect future beyond this world in the presence of our Lord. That hope gets us through this time because it gives us something to look forward to. We can compare the temporary imperfection of this world to what awaits us then, and the future reward motivates us to live this life well today. However, not all of our promises are for the future. Our faith is not just about what is to come. A large component of our faith is about what we have now, and what we have now is real freedom. The world is imperfect, and we are imperfect, and the consequences of this imperfection are real, but we are free from the power of sin now.
Some might have difficulty reconciling this current freedom with the consequences of the fall which still affect us. Christians do not live perfect lives in a perfect little bubble. We still deal with sickness and physical death. We also still deal with temptation to sin every day. Temptation, however, is the extent of sin’s power in the life of a child of God. Sin will tempt us by appealing to our flesh, but that does not mean that we must sin. It does not mean that sin has any power over us. Sin only has the power we give it. This is because God gives us the power to say no to sin and take the way out from under temptation every time we encounter it. This is the freedom we get to experience now.
We must understand that freedom from sin is about our option to choose otherwise. Being free from the power of sin does not mean that temptation will not chase us. It does not mean that sin will not appeal to us on some level. We still must deal with the issue of sin, and we still might struggle with some temptations more than others. This does not mean that we have not received the freedom Paul says we have. It is for us to live in that freedom in the face of temptation as an exercise of faith and of worship. We only need to decide to walk in the freedom God makes available. Father, give us the faith we need to walk away from temptation and live free from the power of sin in this fallen world.