Sunday thoughts. . .Monday's challenge
Yesterday at church we celebrated the Lord's supper. As always, it was a good time to reflect on the week and once again be challenged with how I treat the death and resurrection of our Lord. The Lord offers me mercy and grace on a daily basis, and it does not deserve to be taken lightly. It is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it, a costly grace...grace that bids a man to come and die. As I was convicted of various times in the week and areas of my life where I do not always give the Lord supremacy, the Lord took me to Romans 6.

"...have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ jesus, we died with Him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we may also live new lives.

"...Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, know we will also share His new life...he died once to defeat sin, and now He lives for the glory of God. So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

"Do not let sin control the way you live...Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whold body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God's grace."

May I live like I am free from the power of sin by God's grace, that all I do and say and think this week may be donen for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.