But Thanks Be To God (From We, Beneficiaries of Love's Great Sacrifice)

Romans 6:15-23NIV

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!

16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves,

you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death,

or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin,

you have come to obey from your heart

the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.

Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness,

so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

Those things result in death!

22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God,

the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Don't you love how a familiar passage of scripture

can impact us anew with profound wonder?!!

Such is the case, as the above passage inspired today's Thanksgiving Hymn

Love transforms perspective ...

...until nothing is ordinary 

... and everything is sacred!

‘But great thanks be to God’ from we, once sorry slaves to sin

From we who benefit from He who paid the debt we owed

From we, washed clean and purged of guilt’s vile residue within

From we once without hope and God, till He, his grace bestowed

‘But glad thanks be to God’ from we, now slaves to righteousness

From we who have believed and obey, not through force, but love

From we who are awed heirs of God’s unfailing promises

Where sin no longer reigns that we obey its lusts thereof

‘But meek thanks be to God’ from we who are saved from sin’s wage

By love’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord

The Hand, once pierced with nails will part death’s sea where demons rage

And lead us through on dry ground to faith’s infinite reward

‘But sweet thanks be to God’ who spares us from hell’s dreadful rue

Because He did not spare Himself to suffer pardon’s price

But purchased our redemption as sin’s curse He overthrew

So we could reap the benefit of Love’s Great Sacrifice

© Janet Martin

When we believe in God we obey, perhaps, through 

a sense of pious obligation.

But oh! when we love God we, as v. 17 describes it;

'we come to obey from our hearts

the pattern of teaching that has claimed our allegiance!'

(because )

v. 18. 'we have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness'

May this be our prayer, that we would ever yearn to love our Saviour more!

More Love to Thee