Dead to the Law, In Christ

I felt like reading from Romans 7 this morning.

Romans 7:1-2, 4-6 NIV
"Do you not know, brothers and sisters---for I am speaking to those who know the law---that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? [2] For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him."

[4] "So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. [5] For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. [6] But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code."

I guess that I have read these verses before, but there was something about the simplicity of verses 1 & 2 that caught my attention today. Paul is talking about a spiritual reality here that we have a hard time grasping and appropriating in our lives. The fact that in Christ, through His death and resurrection, we are set free from the law and its requirements because we have died and risen in Him, is simple to write, and nearly impossible to fully grasp. The grace, favor, life and power that is actually available to us because of this reality is far beyond what we generally experience.

This is a spiritual reality that should have affect in the realms of our body and mind as well. Our problem is that we are so in tune to our mind and body, we often miss the spiritual reality available to us. My prayer is that I will learn to live as much in the spiritual reality, as I do the others. I want to learn to serve in the new way of the Spirit, learning to appropriate into my life all that is available to me, through Jesus my Savior.