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Report a TypoRomans ◦ Chapter 6
1What then should we say about this amazing healing plan? Should we spread the infection of distrust and selfishness and cause more devastation and destruction so that the power of God's healing solution may be more fully displayed?2Absolutely not! We have taken the antidote, and the infection of distrust and selfishness has been purged from our hearts and minds. How then can we choose to be reinfected with distrust of God and practice selfish methods again?3Or don't you realize that all of us who were immersed into union with Christ Jesus were immersed into selflessness and have died to self-centeredness?4We symbolically demonstrate that we have joined him in dying to self by being buried in water, in order that–just as Jesus rose from the dead, displaying the life-giving glory of the Father–we too may live a new life, displaying God's glorious character.5If we have joined him in dying to self, we will absolutely join him in his resurrection and in new life!6For we know that when our old selfish hearts and fear-ridden minds trust God and surrender to be crucified with Christ–the infection of selfishness is purged, and our hearts are no longer controlled by Satanic principles, 7as anyone who dies to selfishness is free from Satan's methods, principles, and control.8Now, if we join Christ in dying to self, we are confident we will live with him forever.9Because Christ was raised from the dead and cannot die again, he has secured the Remedy and has revealed the truth; and death cannot touch him again.10The death he died, he died once, destroying Satan's lies and the infection of fear and selfishness, and restoring love and trust; therefore the life he lives, he lives to glorify God.11In the same way, recognize that you are dead to the ways of Satan and alive to the ways of God as revealed in Christ Jesus.12Therefore do not indulge selfish desires or participate in destructive activities.13Do not use your physical body for evil (to indulge selfishness), but rather offer your entire being to God, revealing that Satan's principles of death have been replaced by God's principles of life. So offer your entire self to God, doing what is right and healthy because it is right and healthy.14For distrust, fear and selfishness will no longer hold control over you, as you are no longer under the law's terminal diagnosis, but–having partaken of God's gracious Remedy–you are under his healing care.15What then? Shall we indulge selfish desires because God has provided a gracious Remedy for our terminal condition? Absolutely not!16Don't you realize that when you gratify selfish desires, you are being slowly transformed and become more and more selfish, destroying the very faculties that recognize and respond to God's healing truth? Don't you realize that over time you lose your freedom to choose and become a slave to selfishness and lust, which lead only to self-destruction and death? Conversely, if you accept God's gracious Remedy and choose his methods, you are transformed and become Christlike in character.17Thanks be to God, for even though you used to be slaves to selfishness, you wholeheartedly accepted the truth revealed by Jesus, trusted God, and now practice his methods of love, truth and freedom, which you were taught.18Therefore you have been freed from distrust, fear and selfishness, and have been bonded to love, truth and liberty, doing what is right because it is right.19I state this as simply as possible, using human terms, because it is easier to understand and learn that way: Just as you used to choose to use your bodies in lewd, vile and debasing ways, so now you choose to use your bodies to do what is right, reasonable and healthy, which leads to purity and holiness.20When you slavishly indulged selfish desires, you avoided what was healthy, right, and good.21But what good did that do you? It only caused pain, heartache, and ultimately–death.22But now that you have accepted the truth about God, you have been restored to trust, and set free from fear and selfishness. You are wholeheartedly committed to God and are receiving complete re-creation of heart and mind, resulting in eternal life.23For the infection of selfishness leads only to death, but the gift of God is eternal life through the healing Remedy procured by Jesus Christ our Lord.