DAILY READING
REFLECTION
Sin No Longer Your Master
by David Thompson
When I was young, I worked on a farm with my two brothers. One day, my older brother and I were out in a field of grass harvesting it to make it into silage. For those not with a farming background, silage is grass put up into the old silos on a farm. It would ferment over time and smell pretty bad. Cows don't seem to mind. Well one day, the farmer was riding on the tractor pulling a harvester that shot the cut grass into a sided wagon. We always worked the wagon pushing the thrown grass into the corners of the wagon. Well, having five or six boys in the wagon usually led to some chicanery. We would throw grass at each other, let the shot grass bury our feet up to our knees (we lost some good shoes doing that), and this one day my older brother decided he was going to go all in and let the grass completely bury him. The day went on and the full wagons were in the corner of the field and my brother was nowhere in sight. My mom sent me over to get Charles and have him come home for lunch. When I got there, the other boys told me the story, and luckily I made them go with me to the wagon and dig my brother out. He was blue from a lack of oxygen and from the weight of the grass. Actually, he almost died, and my mom always related this story and gave credit to God, as she never had wanted us home for lunch from the farm before.
So why do I tell this heralding story? Our passage states that,"For sin will no longer be our master, for we are no longer under the law..." My brother was trapped and couldn't move. The grass had become his master. The passage goes on to say, "...but under grace." You know we are trapped by something. Luke 21 verse 34 says, "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life and the day will close on you suddenly; like a trap." The Bible teaches that we will be under the law trying to live perfectly and failing. Or we will be under grace and knowing that even when we do fail, we have an advocate to the Father in Jesus Christ. When we ask for forgiveness for some sin, it is taken care of. If you say to God, "Remember when ....?" God replies, "No" He chooses to forget. Psalms 103:12 tells us, "As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins from us." As far as the east is from the west is a straight line that goes on forever, with no end. Thanks be to God.
Jesus says later in the passage that, "Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness." "Sin resulted in death," "But now that you have been set free from sin...the result is eternal life." As I said earlier, you will be under one or the other, so which do you choose?
PRAYER
Dear Lord, thank you that you gave us the New Covenant where we are free from the law. Being under grace by your free gift is a burden lifted off all of our shoulders. Be with each of the readers and non-readers alike in seeing the "Good News" of the gospel. In Christ's Name, Amen!
