Daily Devotion - June 23, 2023

While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Rom. 7:5-6)

Before we were saved by the power of the Holy Spirit, we were living in the power of the flesh. We desired what God’s law reveals is harmful to us because we were controlled by earthly passions rather than any desire to honor God. 

In that sense, the law became a meter of our wrongdoing and a measure of the condemned life to which we were chained by our sinful passions. Praise God those chains are broken! 

Since believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, our passions are being transformed and we have power to resist sinful impulses. So, the Bible not only teaches us how to live according to God’s love, but also assures us that we are not slaves to sin. 

At times, we may yield to temptation and even surrender to Satan’s lies that we cannot help it. In such moments we must respond with the assurances of the Gospel: we have been released from the guilt and power of sin. 

We act with that power, when we replace our love of sin with a greater love – the supreme love of Jesus Christ! The grace that God reveals in every passage of Scripture stirs us not to dodge our obligations but to fulfill them out of love for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us!

Prayer: Jesus, now that you have freed me from the chains of sin’s guilt and power, convince me daily of the Spirit’s power in me to fulfill your will for my life by following the standards you have lovingly revealed in your Word.