Romans 6

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¹So what do you reckon? We follow Jesus now, so can we keep on doing bad things so that God will keep on being really good to us?

²No way. Just think about that baptism ceremony. The church leaders baptised us to show that we joined up with Jesus Christ. And you know that Jesus died, and they buried him, but God, our really great Father, made him alive again. Well, that baptism ceremony was to show that we died, just like Jesus Christ, and we got buried too, just like him, but God made us alive again. So it is like we die to doing bad things, but God makes us alive again to do good things. If we live in a new way like this we will not go wrong any more. So if we start to think about doing something bad we have to remember that we are dead, and so we can’t do it. That’s the way we have to live all the time.

⁵We joined up with Jesus Christ and it is like we die, just like he died, and then it is like we come back to life, just like he came back to life.

⁶We know that they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, and it was like they nailed a part of us there too, that old part of us that makes us do wrong all the time. It got nailed to that cross with Jesus, and it is dead. So now it doesn’t have any power over us. It can’t make us do bad things.

⁷You know, if something is dead it can’t do anything. Well, that bad old part of us is dead now so it can’t make us do bad things any more.

⁸It is like we died, just like Jesus Christ died, and now we know that we will also live again with him.

⁹He came back to life after he died, so we are sure that he can never die again. Nothing and can kill him ever again.

¹⁰He did die once, for people that did bad things, but now he stays alive all the time with God.

¹¹Well, we have to think about ourselves in that same way. We joined up with Jesus Christ, so now, if we start to think we want to do something bad we have to tell ourselves that we died, just like Jesus died, so we can’t do anything bad. We have to think about living God’s way and then we will be really alive, just like Jesus Christ is alive.

¹²So don’t just think about the law that comes from Moses. It talks about the bad things people do. If you just think about this you will want to do those same bad things yourself. In that way that law will be your boss and your bodies too will make you want to do bad. Don’t be like that. Don’t let any part of your body be your boss. Don’t do whatever it wants. Instead you have to give your bodies to God and let him use you to do good things. You have to think about him all the time and remember that he is very good to you, and that he made you alive again in a new way. If you think like this you will not want to do anything bad. God is really good to you. That law is not your boss any more.

¹⁵But maybe you think like this, “We can do whatever bad things we want to do, because that law is not our boss any more and God will be good to us anyway.” No way. Don’t think like that.

¹⁶You know that if you always do whatever another person wants, you make him your boss. So if you do bad things all the time, you make those bad things your boss, and in the end you will die. But if you do whatever God wants all the time you make him your boss, and in the end he will say that you are really good.

¹⁷Actually you used to do bad things all the time but now you have made God your boss and you really want to do whatever he wants. I thank God for this.

¹⁸You are free now. You don’t have to do those bad things any more but you have got a new good boss now and you have to do good things all the time.

¹⁹(I’m trying to say this in a way that you will really understand.) In the past you used your body for wrong things, like you worked for a boss that made you do bad things. But now you have to use your bodies for good things. You work for God and he gets you to do good things so that you will be his special people.

²⁰In those days you worked for the wrong boss. You worked for that old part of you that made you want to do bad things. So you did bad things and you never wanted to do good things.

²¹And what did you get after you did bad things? You got shame, that’s all. And you know that people that do those things have to die.

²²So now you can’t think any more about doing bad things, but you can work for God instead. From there you will do good things, and then you will be God’s special people and you will live with him for ever.

²³That’s the way it is. If we work doing bad things we will get our pay for that work. We will die. That’s all the pay we will get. But if we join up to our leader, Jesus Christ, God will give us properly good life that goes on for ever.