For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. —Romans 6:14.
As we called on Jesus’ name in baptism and trusted him to be our Savior, we died to sin (Romans 6:3-4). By sharing in his death and resurrection, we died to dying (Romans 6:8-10; John 11:25-26). We passed from death to life because of our faith in Jesus and God’s power (John 5:24). Our life is joined with Jesus, and his glorious future becomes our own (Colossians 2:12, 3:1-4). We are not under law, but grace. Let’s respond to the gift of grace with passion and with zeal to be holy. Let’s open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, who is daily at work transforming us to become more like Jesus with ever-increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). We are grace-children. We don’t earn our righteousness. We don’t keep laws to be owed salvation. In fact, we could never succeed at such a venture. We are not in bondage to sin, but liberated by grace to be all that God has made us to be — his craftsmanship, his artistry created to do good works (Ephesians 2:1-10). So let’s refuse to let sin be our master and live fully into the grace we have received!