Romans 6:1-4
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Yesterday, we learnt that grace is the unmerrited, unearned, undeserved favour from God. Sometimes, when people hear that something is free, they tend to misuse it. We do the mistake of assuming free means cheap, but as someone once said, “There is nothing like free lunch, someone must pay for it.” Grace might avail to us God’s salvation and bounty free, but it cost God dearly, His very Son. How then can we misuse such a costly gift? How can we take for granted that which cost the giver everything? We should not!
In our text today, Paul makes another argument why we should be careful not to misuse grace. In Romans 5, he has argued for the sufficiency of grace to deal with our sin. That where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. But he knows the tendency of human beings. One hears the abounding of grace with the abounding of sin and imagines that in order to have ‘more grace’, then one should continue sinning. In our time, this is revealed by how casually we treat sin. Believers willfully disobey God because at the back of their minds, they will ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. So bad is the situation that those who advocate for personal holiness are labelled modern-day Pharisees. This is a gross misuse of grace, and as Paul put it, _”How can we who died to sin still live in it?”_ The same grace that saves is the same grace that sanctifies unless, of course, we are talking about a different grace.
Reflections
1. In what ways have you seen believers misuse grace?
2. How will today’s devotion affect your faith and life?
