Romans 6

   I've been hanging out a bit in Romans.  I'm in no hurry and I don't get to it near often enough, but what a book!  It's like peeling layers off an onion- deeper and deeper until you're crying, each layer more pungent than the one before.  However a little time, some heat applied and it caramelizes- sweetens and brings out the flavor in the rest of the meal.
    Particularly Chapter 6, about law, sin and death; grace, freedom and life.
  "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."  (feel those onions affecting your eyes yet?)
    My biggest thing at present is how do I become a "slave to righteousness"???  How does every choice become.... not a choice because I have enslaved myself to God and His choices?    And if I am not, in deed (literally) a slave to righteousness, am I not a slave to the law of sin and death?  back to death again?!
          And yet the chapter ends with...   "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
 Chapter 3 reiterates God's faithfulness despite our lack thereof.  Chapter 4 talks of Abraham... a very far from perfect person, and his faith through which justification comes.   "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."  What would the Jehovah's Witness ladies who visit me say to that?  They think I'm nuts for my stance on behavior independent grace.  They seem to confuse the Lord's punishments/discipline with His promise keeping.  How sad it is to believe without confidence.  What would they say to Romans 4 (much less chapter 8) in one of our more accepted translations? 
        Even though I struggle with knowing I am not a slave to righteousness so much of the time and thereby I fall back into the law of sin and death- that's where His grace comes in and there is where my faith will hang out.  That is where I will put my confidence which adds so much to savor in life.   As the layers of the onion unfold, I find new layers of gratitude for the gift God offers- and that enhances all that life here and hereafter is and will be.