When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? These things result in death!
Rom 6.20-21
Free from the control of righteousness. In other words, free to be free. The world today (as always) screams loudly that everyone ought to do whatever it is he/she thinks is right....with the peculiar clause that that "right" mustn't hurt/offend anyone else. Somehow, I have yet to find any behavior, choice of words, or what-have-you that does not hurt/offend someone.
Free to be free. An intoxicating phrase. I, myself, a desperate for the freedom to be "free" from RA; free to be a nurse, free to be a more active house-wife, free to see friends and family when I want to---not when my disease activity is lessened enough to make it bearable to visit (and not sit in a miserable heap or cry or lay down in the car).
Yes, free to be free is intoxicating. Yet, "what fools these mortals be"(!); we have infinite freedom through Christ:
"The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus"." Rom 6.10-11
The "freedom" we seek we already hold through the salvation of Christ; the true "life" to live we already hold. The only finishing step to our freedom from the sin-enslaved life we once lived to the Christ-love enslaved life we now have is the step in which we receive our crowns of righteousness at the End of Days:
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day---and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing." 2 Tim 4.7-10
We fight many hard battles in this sin-ravaged land---some people seem to have a heavier load that others, when I hear their stories. Yet the important thing is to stand firm in our faith, stand firm in our bonds of righteous slavery. For what life is there in the "freedom" the world claims it has? There is no life there, only a death that ends in worse-than-life death. The "joys" of the world may appear to be fulfilling, yet as I see now, they are but empty, dead grasses whispering in the wind. I may often be sick, suffering great pain like many, many people in the world, and my heart may break at facing this battle at times...but there is nothing so fulfilling as the love, joy and grace of the Lord. I desperately long for those things I mentioned in the second paragraph...but those pale to mere hints of a ghost in the overwhelming, indescribable radiance and glory of the King of kings.
The world is intoxicating; like all alcoholics, we must "avoid" the world to not become lost to our addiction---this can only be done with righteous enslavement. It must be the first and foremost goal in our daily lives to honor, obey, worship and glorify our Redeemer. For without that constant study, we are easy pray to the wolves of the world's poison; soon we are scattered in the bondage of sin-slavery again.
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