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In our modern world we don’t often think of the implications of slavery anymore. We mostly see it as our past and the lessons we can learn from our history. But when Paul talks about slavery in this chapter, he is speaking from a first hand perspective. Slavery was common in his day and when he talks about sin being you master in verse 14, he is also talking about being set free from sin because we are under grace, For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Since we are no longer under the law, grace has set us free from focusing only on controlling the individual sins in our lives and allows us to focus on the big picture of concentrating on having a relationship with God. Verse 16 goes on to talk about what we should be slaves to, Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey–whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? In the end, it is much better to focus on being a slave to righteousness, not because it is a requirement of salvation, but because God wants what is best for us which is why He sacrificed His Son for us in the first place.
Daily Devotion 
I’m still reading! I just haven’t had anything to add to the conversation for some reason.
No worries… Just keep reading… 😉
For some reason this is the verse that I continued to read over and over in my reading trying to process:
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. (Romans 6:13 NIV)
The more I read this, the more I realized that you have to hand yourself over to God daily. As much as I want to believe that as I came up out of the water, that my sinful desires died with it, We all know that is not the case.
If we’re going to use the metaphor of slavery then, for us to be slaves to rightousness, we have to understand what it is our master wants from us. It’s our duty as slaves to seek out our master and know his desires or our lives.
Paul says in Romans 12:2 that it’s the renewing of our mind that transforms us. Constant renewal of our mind. It starts with the decision to follow, to believe. But it’s the daily choice to pursue that truly turns our life over to Christ in a way that sin has no hold on our life.
This is an excellent point, Brian. I’ve noticed time and time again, that if I don’t turn my focus to God on a constant basis, the little bit of lack of focus is all that sin needs to spring up in my life. It’s so hard to do it and I’ll never be perfect at it, but the more I look to God and focus on Him, the more I am able to combat the influence of sin in my life.