Love Me Some Grace

Romans 6:14
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Taken from Rod Hembree's Daily Devotional:

The word excuse means to offer an apology in order to seek to remove blame.
In our society, we use this word and its meaning as a pillar of truth holding up the foundation of modern religious thought.

We seek to excuse our sin and lean hard on the grace of God for forgiveness. With little or no effort to change, we chug along gleefully, not realizing that we are doing violence to the Gospel. 
In Romans 6, Paul confronts the "live easy faith" phenomenon. It is not new to the church because we, the people, always try to humanize our faith.
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What I see in the sixth chapter of Romans is that God's grace is freely given, but is very powerful and costs us our life. In other words, when we come to Jesus and surrender, our life is no longer our own, but His. I know this sticks in the craw of some, but the truth is, Jesus can show us and guide us better at living than we can on our own. Jesus won't send us down a path that He knows is filled with destruction and danger. He will help us navigate such path's, should we find ourselves in such places.

Much talk about grace so far, so here is my definition of grace, as taught to me by James Ryles.
Grace is the empowering presence of God, in my life, that enables me to be who God created me to be, and to do what God has created me to do.

So, with that definition, here is what Grace can do when we allow it to work in us.

1.) God's grace gives us a chance to change, not an excuse to keep living like we want to.

2.) God's grace is gives to us that we might break the chains of sin that hold us in bondage to our old lifestyle. Grace is not given so that we might simply polish those chains and wear them like jewelry.

3.) God's grace is given to us that we might rightly be able to give ourselves to Him.
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The law...God's ten commandments given to Moses.
Is the law null and void now? Does it no longer matter in the life of a believer?
I think it does.
The law keeps me mindful of the debt that Jesus paid that I might have this life I currently live, and the one to come after I leave this old world.
God gave 10 commandments to show humanity their need for a Savior.

Once Christ died to pay for the sin of humanity, then sin no longer has dominion over those who are saved. No longer has dominion over us because the grace of God has broken that link and set us free to live in Him and for Him. I think I might could muster up a little gratitude and "thank you Jesus" if I think on this long enough.

God on you....
mb