But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its natural end, eternal life (verse 22).
We are no longer slaves to sin, but have become slaves to God. Yet how little we seek to follow Him, to obey His every word. We spend valuable time chasing after our old master – maybe not in the same way as before, but we chase after sin nonetheless. How little we spend our time truly chasing after God and His kingdom! Think on how much time has been wasted on trivial pursuits this past week, and compare it to the time spent in His Word, or in prayer, or in service to the Saints or the needy of this world. I know that I am spending far too much time on matters that will have no eternal significance.
Yet the more I chase after the things of God the more fruit I see in my life. I want ot see the fruit of the Spirit in my life; to see a growing degree of piety, of love for God, of selflessness. In order to grow this fruit as well as possible, I need to be nourishing it with Godly things, and above all, by offering my life as a sacrifice to His glory.
I am no longer a slave to sin. I am a slave to righteousness, to my Lord Jesus Christ. I am to obey Him, and no other master.
Mission Statement
In classical sacrifices, the people get the good bits, and the gods get the refuse, the bits that would get thrown out otherwise.
Not our God. Leviticus (particularly Leviticus 3) describes the sacrifices that our LORD demanded from His people of Israel. God gets the kidneys, the tail, and all the fat. He gets the prime steak, He gets the best.
Today we do not literally give sacrifices of animals. For us the ultimate sacrifice has been made through our Lord, Christ Jesus. But should always be our ambition to do the same thing - to offer God the best of what we have, to offer Him the fat, and not the smoke and bones.
Not our God. Leviticus (particularly Leviticus 3) describes the sacrifices that our LORD demanded from His people of Israel. God gets the kidneys, the tail, and all the fat. He gets the prime steak, He gets the best.
Today we do not literally give sacrifices of animals. For us the ultimate sacrifice has been made through our Lord, Christ Jesus. But should always be our ambition to do the same thing - to offer God the best of what we have, to offer Him the fat, and not the smoke and bones.
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