“FREE GIFT!”

Romans 6:20-23                            (ESV)
“20 For when you were SLAVES OF SIN, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? FOR THE END OF THOSE THINGS IS DEATH.
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become SLAVES OF GOD, THE FRUIT you get leads to SANCTIFICATION and its end, ETERNAL LIFE.
23 For the WAGES OF SIN is death, but the  “FREE GIFT” of GOD is eternal life in CHRIST JESUS our LORD.”

The movie entitled THE ULTIMATE GIFT impacted my life in that a rich, spoiled brat inherited great wealth, but only after he have away all that he had for a hospital to be built in memory of a girl who had befriended him while he was lost in his privilege.  Keep in mind that he inherited the money.  He didn’t earn it.  Basically, it was a “FREE GIFT”!

As Believers in the work that JESUS CHRIST performed while on the earth, we didn’t do anything to earn it.  We are not worthy of the fruit of being a Believer.  What we DO DESERVE is DEATH!  The lives that we live, even the best of us (of which I am certainly not!), DESERVES eternal separation from GOD!

SLAVERY is something we are born into.  Since we know nothing but SLAVERY, it can seem almost NORMAL to be ENSLAVED, because “everybody else is doing it”!  Continuing to follow “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) is without a doubt the easiest way to go.  But the enemy does not have our best interests at heart.  He has already been defeated and is trying to carry as many people into hell with him as he has already been sentenced to an eternal fate!

1 Peter 2:9 says “But you are a CHOSEN RACE, a royal priesthood, a HOLY (set apart) NATION, a people for HIS own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of HIM WHO called you OUT OF DARKNESS out of darkness into HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT.”  We can CHOOSE to reject the “FREE GIFT” of being CHOSEN by our CREATOR, but why would we CHOOSE to have the WRATH OF GOD displayed against us for all eternity???  I CHOOSE THE “FREE GIFT”!!!