Theology for Everybody: RomansSample

Paul teaches that freedom is not doing what you want but what God wants. Often, the master we choose is not just our success, beauty, pleasure, convenience, or comfort. It’s also someone we put in God’s place. We live for that person’s approval and fear rejection and punishment. If they are pleased with us, then we believe we are blessed.

We tend to pick someone and present ourselves to them as obedient slaves. “Just tell me what you want. I will do that, and then you will bless me.” It’s a counterfeit for a real relationship with Jesus. A good person still makes a bad master. Your boss is a bad master. Your spouse is a bad master. Your parents are bad masters.

Paul says we are set free from sin to righteousness. The problem is that once we’ve been set free from one sin, we often pick another. We trade one master for another. Only the truly free are free from sin. Ask yourself, “Am I living as a slave to someone or something, or have I been set free by my new Master, Jesus, who gives me grace?”

Righteousness gets a negative name because we tend to put a word before it—“self.” No one wants to be self-righteous, so we avoid it as much as possible. The real goal is not to be unrighteous or self-righteous but just plain righteous. So, what is righteousness? God puts holiness in you, and righteousness makes decisions out of your holiness. Holiness is an internal condition; righteousness is an external action.

In those moments when you have a decision to make, will you pick unrighteousness or righteousness? Will you do what the old master tells you to do or what Jesus, the new Master, tells you to do? What you eat, what you drink, what you say, what you spend, what you click on, what you look at, what you think about, what you feel, where you go, who you touch...the decisions you make will be either unrighteous or righteous. They can be going back to an old master or going forward to the new Master.

Paul speaks about decision-making in a very practical way. Often, instead of making decisions, we like to make excuses. We like to excuse the bad decision we made rather than make the decision to decide differently. Making the decision to decide differently is an act of righteousness. That is how we overcome sin.

Today’s Reflection

Are you making decisions or excuses?