6-25-26 - Instruments of Righteousness

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.

For the rest of the week we turn to Sunday’s passage from Romans, which is such a deep and complex work of theology, it’s a hard to just take a quick dip in it. But let’s jump in anyway, because it contains a beautiful invitation to freedom in Christ – freedom from sin, and freedom from the effort to claw our way into God’s good graces. Paul writes, Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

It doesn’t always feel like we are living under grace – the world lives by law, and we often ingest the message that we’re never quite righteous enough, no matter what we do. And on one level, we’re right – we’re not. In our own merely human selves, we are wired for self-gratification and self-righteousness. The Good News is that we are made righteous, deemed righteous by the righteousness of Jesus – we get to put on his goodness as we “put on Christ” in baptism.

I once explained this to someone who had grown up in a religious system of judgment and legalism, condemnation and never-good-enough-ness. She said, “Wait, you’re telling me I’m off the hook?” “Yes!” I said, “Jesus took the hook for us." We are off the hook of trying to save ourselves, justify ourselves, grit our teeth and discipline ourselves into better behavior. It is not about behavior; it is about belonging to the God whose love is so overwhelming it can set the whole world free, who can bring us from death into life.

As we take in that breathtaking Good News, we start to see that it is the power of Christ’s life released in us that enables us to “not let sin exercise dominion” in us. In the face of temptations to gossip, or judge, or exert power over another, or manipulate something for our own gain, we may be weak, but St. Paul tells us that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. We don’t have to try harder; we have to accept the gift of God’s grace more deeply, and allow that life to flow through us in love.

We don’t discipline ourselves into being more loved; we are loved into making more holy and life-giving choices. Thus we become vessels of God’s goodness; conductors of God’s power into people and places in need of healing; instruments of God’s righteousness through whom the sweetness and grace and mercy of God’s song of love can echo throughout the universe.

© Kate Heichler, 2026. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.