You're not the boss of me!

Romans 6:15-18

Observe:
Repeated words: slaves, sin, righteousness.
Paul uses the rhetorical question again in this paragraph. He also makes a contrast between being a slave to sin (which leads to death) and a slave to God (which leads to righteousness).

Interpret:
Paul is making the point that our freedom from the law does not equal freedom to sin but freedom to obey God (something we were incapable of apart from God's intervention - Romans 3). He anticipates that people would abuse the fact that they are not under law but under grace (from the previous paragraph) as a license to sin. He argues that by submitting to sin a person makes himself a slave again to sin. He also indicates that humans are always slaves to something - in Paul's world it is either we are slaves to sin or slaves to God.

Apply:
Sin is no longer my master. I have been freed through Jesus Christ to obey God. Compared to the power of God, the Holy Spirit, in me, sin has no power. I need to remember this when temptation comes. I also need to remember that there is a snare hidden in the temptation: that sin never has my good in mind but is trying to entice me to become its slave again. I admit that in the middle of the temptation it seems very attractive and very powerful. I truly need to become more sensitive to the Spirit in me as he seeks to remind me of the truth: God is more powerful that the temptation and the temptation leads to enslavement.