Rm6:15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under
grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves
to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you
obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience,
which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you
used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to
which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have
become slaves to righteousness. 19I put this in human terms because you are weak in
your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery
to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to
righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you
were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you
reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in
death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become
slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal
life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - NIV
Rm1:1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set
apart for the gospel of God-- 2the gospel he
promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding
his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and
who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God
by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through
him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people
from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from
faith. 6And
you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. - NIV
Jud1:3Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
4For certain men whose condemnation was written
about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
..... these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and
slander celestial beings. ...... 10 ..... these men speak
abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do
understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals�these are the very things
that destroy them. ..... 12These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you
without the slightest qualm�shepherds who feed only
themselves. They are
clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn
trees, without fruit and
uprooted�twice dead. 13They are wild waves of
the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has
been reserved forever. 14Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with
thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to
judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have
done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken
against him." 16These men are grumblers
and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about
themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. 17But,
dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18They
said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow
their own ungodly desires." 19These are
the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the
Spirit. - NIV
Challenge: True Life