daily reading 11.4 (Romans 6:19–21)

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 6:19–21

  • I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.
  • 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.
  • 21 So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death.
Helpful notes on Romans 6:19–21 




For yourself pray:

  • That you see in Christ the futility of sin and the stupidity of sin's promise to give you freedom

For others pray:

  • That God gives his Spirit to a young person you know who is longing for freedom

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

  • Psalm 41 (YouTube, duet, "But you will uphold me ...")

 

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