Living In Holiness

One who claimed to be a shepherd of Christ's sheep once said, "Christ died for our sins. Dare we make His martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?" Must we make Christ's death on His cross the reason for us to commit sin, so that His cross gets more meaning and importance? Did not the apostle Paul write in Romans 6:1, 2 , "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Salvation does not mean simply that our guilt is removed, and that we now are righteous before God. It also means that we are made holy, and that salvation implants in us love for God, and thus the desire to be pleasing in His sight in all that which we do. The evidence that He died for us is that we have been given love of God, and in that love want to be pleasing in His sight. It reveals, that salvation does, that we want to walk as our Savior did, walk in obedience and love for God.

Would you want to drink poison so that the skill and wisdom of your doctor would be revealed? Being cured, would you want to take even more of that poison to give that physician more honor and credit for his skill? Instead, you would be making it possible for your mortician to earn a bit more money by your funeral.

No, of course not! Likewise, if you are saved from sin, you are saved from the love of sin. If Christ died for your sins, He will cause you to be born again with a life that wants to walk every step of the way in the obedience wherein He walked.

With Paul you will say, "God forbid." You will take hold of the truth in verse 23 that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is everlasting life. That means a life like that of Christ Who saved us.

Read: Romans 6

Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Ezekiel 20:1-49 
Hebrews 9:11-28 
Psalm 107:1-43 
Proverbs 27:11 
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Quote for Reflection:

"Note how the voice of the flesh is always saying "my," "my."  Get rid of this "my" and rather say:  "Glory to Thee, O Lord!"  And then you will be saved.  For the prudence of the flesh is such that it seeks only its own, and it fears its own misery more than failure to glorify God, and thus it seeks its own will more than God's will.  And thus we must have a different mind toward God than toward man."  ~Martin Luther, Works, v. 25, p.376.