Slaves

Romans 6:16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

The are two forms of slavery...involuntary and voluntary. Both however, require absolute servitude. A voluntary slave was no less a slave than an involuntary. Paul is talking about a voluntary slave....who was previously an involuntary slave to sin. Regardless the master had absolute rights over his slave....entirely. So we can choose, to an extent, do we live in bondage of the world (default slavery) or do we chose to give ourselves to a new master? The new master offers life and freedom, the old master offers what appears to be life and freedom...but in the end....leads to death. Even on the earth the World's (Satan's) freedom that is offered has negative consequences ....the freedom that God offers has none.

One verse evangelism;
I don’t know that I can read Romans 6 without referencing 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A former pastor of mine told me ….if you had one verse to encapsulate the entire gospel, if you could memorize one verse, to have in your head this would be it.

Wages are something we earn, we deserve. If you work all week…. You are going to get your wage. And the wage of sin (for all have sinned Romans 3:23) is death. Since all have sinned, we deserve death.
Pretty depressing….but the second part is God’s plan of redemption. Gifts on the other hand are nothing we deserve….they are free without cost to the receiver, and they are without strings. But in order to own the gift…you must receive it. You must actively take it….reach out and take it from the giver. God offers the gift of eternal life with Him in heaven, if we receive the gift Christ freely gives us.

Pretty simple. Why then don’t some people receive the gift of life when presented with it? What could be a better alternative? I can think of only one example in the Bible when Christ offered the gift and it was rejected……but it was indeed rejected.

As slaves of obedience, we must do our part to live life abundantly… in (The Spirit) joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control and patience and present the GOOD NEWS as we do so. We aren’t called to win souls….we are called to tell what Christ has done for us.