For He taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. Matthew 7:29 NRSV.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. Ephesians 1:18-19.

Can we truly understand anything about life if we don’t understand love? My sister just got word that her beloved companion has cancer and if you want to know love, you see it everyday in the eyes of a dog who is loyal and faithful and for whom you are the whole world. And I asked God will she be in heaven, who loves so faithfully? Will heaven be too crowded for our beloved pets? He said there is room. There is love held and not forgotten. There is joy yet to be. There is Me. Can we appreciate that love itself is because Creator God, Father, Son, Spirit, IS? Can we contrast that with the absolute darkness of sin that seeks to destroy and harm grievously? I had already read our chapter, Romans 6, when she texted the news. And it puts this chapter in a whole different relief for me. Dogs don’t sin. Animals don’t sin. And they love. That we humans need to be taught why not to sin is sad in itself. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. v. 1-7. That’s a remarkable statement…for he who has died is freed from sin, can we see that sin is a prison? Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin or as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! v. 8-15. May it never be either way, to continue in sin so that grace may increase…to sin because we are not under law but under grace…how can we turn back to what causes such pain and suffering when we have found the love of Creator God? Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. v. 16-23.

Imagine eternal life with Creator God! Remember always the love that gladdens the heart and brings remembrance of good. Remember gentle faithfulness and loyalty. Remember a love so profound that Creator God came to live among us, His children dearly loved. He entered into our darkness of sin to bring us to the Father’s Love. He will not abandon us to sin and darkness. Not our God! He loves us too much! He didn’t need to create dogs or animals or us…but He did! And we are all of us loved because He IS Love and His love heals us always! It is His Love that shows us the way forward to life eternal lived with Him and all those we love so much now and into eternity.