Read: Romans 7:14–25
Bible in a Year: Job 11–13; Acts 9:1–21
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24–25
At his death, the great artist Michelangelo left many unfinished
projects. But four of his sculptures were never meant to be completed.
The Bearded Slave, the Atlas Slave, the Awakening Slave, and the Young Slave,
though they appear unfinished, are just as Michelangelo intended them
to be. The artist wanted to show what it might feel like to be forever
enslaved.
Rather than sculpting figures in chains, Michelangelo made
figures stuck in the very marble out of which they are carved. Bodies
emerge from the stone, but not completely. Muscles flex, but the figures
are never able to free themselves.
My empathy with the slave sculptures is
immediate. Their plight is not unlike my struggle with sin. I am unable
to free myself: like the sculptures I am stuck, “a prisoner of the law
of sin at work within me” (Rom 7:23). No matter how hard I try, I cannot
change myself. But thanks be to God, you and I will not remain
unfinished works. We won’t be complete until heaven, but in the meantime
as we welcome the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, He changes us.
God promises to finish the good work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).
God, thank You that You make us new creatures through the work of Your Son Jesus Christ, freeing us from our slavery to sin.
He is the potter; we are the clay.
© 2017 Our Daily Bread Ministries
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