God's Grace Is So Easily Cheapened.

Scripture: Romans 6:15 "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!"

Observation: Paul spent a lot of Chapters 1-4 discussing how restricting the law is. The law only brings guilt. All attempts to be good enough for heaven by measuring my goodness verses my badness end with failure - every time.

But grace! Grace brings peace (5:1)! Grace brings life (5:21)! Grace brings joy (5:11)!

Paul points out here that the problem is that all too often I trample on God's grace. I'm lazy about the holy living that God has called me to ... or I try to relegate the usefulness of God's grace to home life, or work, or just my recreation, or Sundays, or around certain people. Paul is clear that I am expected to take full advantage of God's grace and that I should not take it for granted.

Grace freed me (6:18) so that I might serve God, because before I was a slave to sin not by choice.

Application:
1. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the things that I haven't stopped serving sin in.

2. Confess. Repent. Make repairs where possible. Don't just stop the bad.

3. Move past that to the place where I begin replacing it with the good. Intentionally be a slave to God for fruit to righteousness (6:22).

Prayer: Again I ask for Your help. A lot of humility is needed here. Because of my tendency toward sin and rebellion I will try to fight and justify the actions that I want to hold on to. But You are my God, not sin! Teach me, discipline me, guide me. You are better than all other things in this world. All the happiness that I could have apart from You in 10,000 lives is sewage compared to the sweet waters of Your presence. And I don't even have 10,000 lives - I only have this one, so help me not to waste my life by living for myself. I love You! Amen.