daily reading 11.3 (Romans 6:15–18)

5-days-a-week through Romans and the letters Paul wrote from Rome in 2024

Our opening prayer for this week:

        Lord, I ask you to be gentle,

        Not to cause me undue strain,

        For your hand lies heavy on me

        And your arrows bring me pain!

        How the weight of guilt I bear

        Drives me headlong to despair!

        When the friends whom I have trusted

        Seem to turn on me with scorn,

        When my heart is crushed with numbness

        Until all day long I mourn,

        Grief is mine no words can tell,

        Anguish I cannot dispel.

        So afraid my feet are slipping,

        All to you I now confess:

        Is my own sin not a factor

        In the roots of my distress?

        Savior, mercy! Hear me cry —

        Lord, I wait for your reply.

        But I cannot keep on waiting —

        Pain too fierce, too strong my foes —

        Be my God, and do not leave me. 

        Send, I beg, in all my woes,

        Lord, whatever you allow.

        LORD, my rescue, help me. Now! Amen.

  

Romans 6:15–18

• What then? Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not!
• ¹⁶ Don't you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey— either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
• ¹⁷ But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, ¹⁸ and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

Helpful notes on Romans 6:15–18 

For yourself pray:

• That God the Spirit gives you more awe and joy in Christ's death in your place and in his triumphant resurrection

For others pray:

• That God gives hope and freedom to victims of slavery

A psalm to listen to and ponder, as time allows:

• Psalm 40 (YouTube, soloist with guitar, "Out of the miry clay")