Romans 6-8 (June 19th)

Romans 6
Ahh Romans 6, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. In high school I had taken a class dedicated completely to the book of Romans. Sadly I don't remember as much as I wish I could!!

Dead to sin, Alive in Christ
For those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, we must remember that we too died to sin and our old ways, and that through Christ we are given a new life. 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
So, since we have died to sin that means that we are no longer slaves to sin, and that we may now be set free of that life. This means that just because we are saved, does not mean that we should just keep on sinning and that its okay because we are saved. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. 
So, instead of letting sin run your life and have control of your body, honor God who has provided a new life for you by living a life free of sin. Do not let sin be your master!

Slaves to Righteousness
Ask yourselves, are you slaves to someone else or something else such as sin, instead of slaves of righteousness? Living your life as a slave to sin you are headed towards death! But, when you are slaves to obedience, that leads to righteousness! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? So when we were slaves to sin, we certainly did not gain anything from it did we? We lived lives that lead to death. But, through the grace of God we can now live lives of holiness that lead to spiritual gifts and eternal life. 

Romans 7 
So, the first part of this chapter is kind of a repeat of what we talked about in Romans 6. We were once slaves to our sin, which caused us to bear fruit of death. But, because we died to that sin we began to bear fruit of life. The law that we lived by caused us to sin, yet this law is not sinful. It was set in place as a guideline and we chose to break it. If the law had not or did not exist then how would anyone know what sins were? And because of these laws set in place, sin always tries to use them against us by filling us with everything that the law speaks of not doing. Such as "Thou shall not steal"and what does sin do, fills us with the desire to take things that are not ours. We must remember that sin will always try and use anything good against us by turning it around making us do bad things with it. Do not let yourselves be slaves to the laws of sin. 

Romans 8 
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sinand death.
These are veery important verses! It speaks of Christ giving up his life for us, by the condemnation of his flesh to sin. He died because the law was weakened by our sinful and human ways. 
 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
These verses speak of the difference between living our lives pleasing to God, verses living our lives pleasing to the flesh. Whatever our flesh wants can and will destroy us. But if we fight it we can live our lives according to what the spirit desires. What are something flesh like desires that we must learn to fight?