BREAK THE SHACKLE OF SIN

THE DAILY FOUNTAIN DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE OF THE CHURCH OF NIGERIA (ANGLICAN COMMUNION)

DATE: SATURDAY, 12TH AUGUST, 2023 

TOPIC: BREAK THE SHACKLE OF SIN

TEXT: ROMANS 7

1. Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

2. For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to [her] husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of [her] husband.

3. So then if, while [her] husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

4. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another -- to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

5.  For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

6.  But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not [in] the oldness of the letter.

7.  What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."

8.  But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all [manner of evil] desire. For apart from the law sin [was] dead.

9.  I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

10.  And the commandment, which [was] to [bring] life, I found to [bring] death.

11.  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed [me.]

12.  Therefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

13.  Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

14.  For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15.  For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

16.  If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that [it is] good.

17.  But now, [it is] no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

18.  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but [how] to perform what is good I do not find.

19.  For the good that I will [to do,] I do not do; but the evil I will not [to do,] that I practice.

20.  Now if I do what I will not [to do,] it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21.  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

22.  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

23.  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24.  O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

25.  I thank God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

MESSAGE : 

Shackles are strongholds or barriers in the form of, bars; iron, chain, clamps, etc., which deprive one's freedom, especially by means of restriction of handicaps (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary). No one can serve two masters. Apostle Paul uses the analogy of marital law to explain the persistent legality of sin over sinners. The law of sin and its consequences exercise dominion over man so long he commits sin (vv. 2&3). “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do… Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me” (vv. 15&17). Freedom from sin comes by refusing to be bounded by its tentacles (refusing to commit it and holding to the Lordship of Christ). 

It is no gainsaying that many Christians struggle with sin continuously. They confess today and tomorrow they commit it again. The fact is that the bond lingers on as the sins are being repeated. Forsaking sin by denouncing, renouncing and be fully engrafted to Jesus is the only means by which the law of sin is put to death and shackles are finally broken. Rise to the challenge those sins you commit and declare for Jesus the Shepherd and Bishop of our soul (I Pet. 2: 25).

PRAYER: 

Encourage me O Lord to rise against the forces of sin in my life, and put an end to struggling with sin. Amen.