Liberation - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.
Romans 6:17

Liberation
The artist Michelangelo impressively depicted the sad fate of slaves through his sculptures. Instead of creating human figures in chains, he created bodies that remain standing in the marble. They emerge from the stone, but not completely. You can see the tense muscles but recognise that they are being held down and cannot free themselves.

Doesn’t this also symbolise our situation before conversion? We were slaves to the sin that dwelt within us. We had to give in to its temptations. We couldn’t help it. No matter how hard we tried to live a different life, we couldn’t. Sin held us down and forced us to keep sinning.

But thanks be to God, through faith in the Lord Jesus we experienced deliverance. His death was imputed to us. As a result, we have died to sin. Therefore, we no longer have to fulfil its demands. We are able to say no to sinful temptations.

At conversion, we have also been given a new life that gives us the ability to do what is good. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us gives us the strength to do this. Thus, deliverance from the power of sin is followed by a life in which we desire to obey God. Out of gratitude for salvation, we place ourselves at His disposal and ask Him what He desires from us.

Today’s reading: 2 Samuel 2:1-11 · Colossians 3:18-25