Read: Romans 6:20-23 NRSV
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So what do prayers do?
Prayers bring us close to God and make us a little more like Him. At the beginning of the week we asked a series of questions that have been asked for thousands of years: do we have free will? Is everything that happens inevitable? Yes. Both.
When we pray, we begin to reject the idea that our independence is necessary to achieve our full selves. In fact, the more we cling to our own individuality, the more we are trapped by the cycles of sin that strip us of any free will. If we die to ourselves and are reborn in Christ, we have the freedom to pursue God’s perfect will. It is through prayers to God that we find our own voice. It is through obedience to God that we learn true personhood. God knows all things, so any random assortment of choice and chance is spread before him like a perfectly wound clock. He gives us the opportunity to be more than a little cog spinning in eternity with no purpose but to spin. God gives us the power to live for him and through him in the Kingdom we are to build.
Pray
God our Savior,
Free us from our thinking. Free us from the idea that the only freedom is in self-reliance and rebellion rather than obedience. In our attempts to be individualistic and independent, we begin to look like the rest of the world and depend on sin to fulfill us. Instead, we seek you and your will. We can only truly be ourselves when we give ourselves up to you. Our personalities become more vibrant, more original, and more free when we become members of one body. Amen.
