Romans 6:22

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

     Being a slave to sin is wretched. The grasp that it has on us is so incredibly strong. We answer to it, and it controls us. Many times the hold is so strong that we do not even think that we have the ability to break free. Indeed it would be near impossible to without the help of God. Those who have been enslaved to sin know that it can be all consuming so that all your thoughts and your actions are geared toward sin.

     As frustrating as that can be for a Christian, it is also important for us to see and understand the power of slavery to sin. The reason is that it is parallel to our slavery to righteousness, and how we should respond to. In Romans 6, Paul compares and contrasts slavery to sin and slavery to righteousness. As Christians it is our responsibility to leave our slavery to sin and instead be slaves to righteousness. To see how consuming sinfulness can be allows us to see how consuming righteousness should be in our Christian life.

     Whereas before all our thoughts or actions were geared to sinfulness, now our thoughts and actions should focus on rightouesness. As slaves to sin, it was hard to refuse temptation. We had to pry ourselves away from sin with no small effort of will, determination, and discipline. Now we should have to pry ourselves away from righteousness if we want to sin. Righteousness should be so ingrained in us that we have to really be trying if we are to go away from it. While it is not easy to get to this point, we must strive to be slaves of rightesouness in deed as well as word.

But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.