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Description
Surrender

For sin pays its wage—death;
but God's free gift is eternal life in union
with Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 23
Have you ever floated on the currents of a river; either in a boat or on a tube or just your body ~ floating? To relinquish control and let the current move you all on its' own power with no effort on your part; is that what surrender means?
What of surrender to God ~ to see where His Spirit leads you and to do the Will of our Heavenly Father ~ to just let go!  What stops us from trusting? What sins get in the way of letting God's Will and His plans for us over take our plans and our will?
Hebrews 11
Faith
1 To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.

That's faith; letting go of our will, our life and clinging to the Lord.  Not to give up our free will but to choose to do God's Will instead of our own. You do this by trusting Christ and following His faith in God.  Christ is the Author and Protector of our faith. We are to trust Jesus with our life, our being, our very soul. Can we cling to God…to His Word to do His will?
John 14:1
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

To surrender~ how can we understand it? How do we understand freely choosing God over ourselves?  Our fallen sinful self struggles and resist.  We know we are empty and we try to replace our God space inside.  Whatever the sin - IT controls you.  Life without it is no longer is a choice, it is slavery.  Thank God in Jesus we can be set free!
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:3636
"We are not "free" to sin; we are free not to sin." *quote from The Gospel Uncensored
Christ was free of sin therefore He was free from the slavery of sin too.  As true man in the flesh He was tempted as you & I are.  Yet He freely choose to follow His Father's will and not  sin since He was also true God and there was no sinful nature in Him.
When we become Christians, He gives us the freedom from the slavery to sin.  We now can choose not to sin because of the faith of Christ. We know that even when we do sin, Jesus already paid the price.  My sin ~ all of it ~ was paid for in blood by Jesus.  He paid the humongous price – the wrath of His Father for the sins of the whole world - on Himself.  In His death He became our sin offering.

The law of Moses was unable to save us
because of the weakness of our sinful nature.
So God did what the law could not do.
He sent his own Son
in a body like the bodies we sinners have.
And in that body God declared an end
to sin's control over us
by giving his Son
as a sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 8:2(NLT)

Only Jesus could be worthy and worth enough to pay for the whole field (all people for all time) because He is God, the Son.
It is amazing that I am saved.  That God choose me for Himself like a bride - that's who we are in Christ, clinging to the faith.  The church: Christ's bride.
Amazing that we are a treasure to God! Why would I be a treasure to God? I am a treasure because I am His child.  It is not what we are but because of who we are in Christ Jesus:  God's children.

God uses many analogies to show that love:
Parent to child:
How often I, wanted to gather your children together
the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!
But you were not willing!
Matthew 23:37
"So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him."
Matthew 7:11

Or the love between a husband and wife:
Revelation 19:7
7 Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready.
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"
Ephesians 5:25
Or of a friend:

I do not call you servants anymore,
because a servant does not know what his master is doing.
But I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you everything
that I have heard from my Father.
John 15:1

Or brothers and sisters:
Hebrews 2:11-13
11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.12 He says,
"I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the assembly I will sing your praises."
13 And again,
"I will put my trust in Him."
And again he says,
"Here am I, and the children God has given me."

All of us, hopefully, can identify at least to one of these relationships and understand in part how great God's love is for us and long for this love of God through Christ Jesus.  Today so many do not even have the love of father/mother to child to relate to.  How can they ever imagine or know God's love?  They ought to at least acknowledge God in fear and awe.
Proverbs 14:27
The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
turning a person from the snares of death.

Without the fear of the Lord you can not feel your sin.  Be thankful you can feel it and grieve, pleading for forgiveness ~ because some do not even feel the shame of their own sin.   To them sin feels "natural"; they barely know it exists ~ at least not in themselves. (They are quick to spot it in others though.)  They do not know they sin against God.  The reject that He even exists though He has shown Himself as the Creator by His very creation! Look at the micro and macro! How can you not believe this wonderful world?! But what if you cannot see that? Lord, help them to see You so they may seek You, Father, for Your Love and mercy.  Run to the Father's arms like the prodigal son, repenting of your foolishness. Surrender to be free in Him and He will send His Holy Spirit to enable you.

"continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
  for it is God who works in you
to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."
Philippians 2:12-13

We can divide what we seek, what sin tempts us into bondage into three groups that you have heard before: the flesh, the world and the devil.  If we look close they all share the sin of idolatry; putting other things or people as your god instead of GOD.
Some of us struggle with sins of the flesh/body.  Slaves to the substance or action that temporarily makes us feel good or whole, it substitutes God and we depend on them to fill us. We can become diseased with addiction. Whether it is food, tobacco, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping; the list of addictions is endless.  Others it is the desire itself.  They surrender to the feeling it gives more then the thing itself yet they are never satisfied, never full no matter how satiated they continue the futile pursuit because they never can be filled or made whole with anything but God.
To other people the caos of the world and the troubles of this earthly life create a fear.  They can not surrender to anyone or anything.  These proud ones often live in desperation and anxiety to manage all within their domain.  They can not stand to be out of control.
When the fear of the world overtakes a person it can create many illnesses of the mind. Depression can set in because we give up in despair against all that has, all who have controlled us against our will and taken away our hope for wholeness.
Then the sin of the love of money:
1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil:
which while some coveted after,
they have erred from the faith,
and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

We humans tend to forget God when things are too good for too long.  Is that why Jesus said:

"And again I say unto you,
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Matthew 19:24
It is difficult for the rich to see their need for God. Although not impossible for the middle, lower and poor to still crave money over God for the rich because loving money more than God is easier for them to succumb to than to those with less. When you have nothing or very little you have no choice but to depend every day on God.

At first it seems the love of money to links the sins of the flesh to the idolatry, but it soon can follow the most corrupt – the hunger for power.
Craving power; whether it is a bully over another person, a parent over a child, a man over a woman or a tyrant over a country … or over the world.  Thinking you can be like God; the sin of Satan.
Satan can never be forgiven. He will never repent. He never wanted to surrender to God again, so he choose sin forever.  Satan had God's presence and no longer wanted to be in God's Glory.  How horrid!
Yet was this not Adam and Eve's sin?  They walked with the Lord in the garden in the cool of the day. To choose a lie and thus death over God who is the source of Life.
Praise God He has chosen to bend down to save man through Jesus' life, death and resurrection!
6 Jesus said,
"I AM the Way — and the Truth and the Life;
no one comes to the Father except through me."
John 14:6

Jesus, the Word ~ what is heard and known.  God the Father is made known through the Son.
No man has seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has declared him.
John 1:18
Jesus is the Good Shepherd ~ help us Lord to hear Your voice!
John 10:25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one."

Surrendering to God does not mean we do not have free will to make life choices. We do, but we are learning to trust and to put God's Will first.  We trust that He will enter into our choices and redeem them.
Romans 8:28(KJV)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
WOW!  When I love God, He enters into all parts of my life, even my sinful choices, and work it to my good. This doesn't mean He will save us from the temporal consequences of our sins, (if you steal, lie, any sin: there are consequences that are harmful or punished) but from the eternal consequence~ eternal death.  Even in our weakness, He can still use us to  His purpose.
Sometimes we can't see His good. We see only the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Amongst troubles of this life faith is hard yet all the more necessary.  How can we see the good God is working in death or horrible suffering? None of which is His will, they are a result of mans' sin.  Yet He enters into it to do good for those who love Him.
When you love, you trust.  Or is it when you know you are loved by God that you trust Him and can surrender to Him.
"We love Him, because He first loved us."
1 John 4:19

This leads us to the relationship of Lord and Master to servant/bondsman.  Many of us in the western modern world do not have any true sense of this relationship and our view is tainted by the cruel abuse man commits over another in this relationship.  Yet with God it is a truth.  We are His servants and He is our Lord and Master.  It is a Loving relationship where our Lord cares for us. When we trust Him, when we surrender to Him, He elevates us to be His adopted children.
He is God. Surrender to Him we must, whether willingly or on Judgment Day:
"so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,"
Philippians 2:10
It is written: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.'"
Romans 14:11
by
~Sharon Rose Rantala~

* "Remember, it is not for bondage that we have been set free; it is for freedom that we have been set free. We are not "free" to sin; we are free not to sin." The Gospel Uncensored by Ken Blue & Alden Swan

Additional Bible Passages:
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
For all have sinned,and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:22-23
Romans 6  (GNT)
Dead to Sin but Alive in Union with Christ
1 What shall we say, then? Should we continue to live in sin so that God's grace will increase? 2 Certainly not! We have died to sin—how then can we go on living in it? 3 For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death.4 By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.
5 For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was.6 And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.7 For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin.8 Since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.9 For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again—death will no longer rule over him.10 And so, because he died, sin has no power over him; and now he lives his life in fellowship with God.11 In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.
12 Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self.13 Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes.14 Sin must not be your master; for you do not live under law but under God's grace.
Slaves of Righteousness
15 What, then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under God's grace? By no means!16 Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey—either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being put right with God.17 But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were slaves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received.18 You were set free from sin and became the slaves of righteousness.19 (I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves.) At one time you surrendered yourselves entirely as slaves to impurity and wickedness for wicked purposes. In the same way you must now surrender yourselves entirely as slaves of righteousness for holy purposes.
20 When you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.21 What did you gain from doing the things that you are now ashamed of The result of those things is death! 22 But now you have been set free from sin and are the slaves of God. Your gain is a life fully dedicated to him, and the result is eternal life.23 For sin pays its wage—death; but God's free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

Description
Surrender

For sin pays its wage—death;
but God's free gift is eternal life in union
with Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 23
Have you ever floated on the currents of a river; either in a boat or on a tube or just your body ~ floating? To relinquish control and let the current move you all on its' own power with no effort on your part; is that what surrender means?
What of surrender to God ~ to see where His Spirit leads you and to do the Will of our Heavenly Father ~ to just let go!  What stops us from trusting? What sins get in the way of letting God's Will and His plans for us over take our plans and our will?
Hebrews 11
Faith
1 To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.

That's faith; letting go of our will, our life and clinging to the Lord.  Not to give up our free will but to choose to do God's Will instead of our own. You do this by trusting Christ and following His faith in God.  Christ is the Author and Protector of our faith. We are to trust Jesus with our life, our being, our very soul. Can we cling to God…to His Word to do His will?
John 14:1
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

To surrender~ how can we understand it? How do we understand freely choosing God over ourselves?  Our fallen sinful self struggles and resist.  We know we are empty and we try to replace our God space inside.  Whatever the sin - IT controls you.  Life without it is no longer is a choice, it is slavery.  Thank God in Jesus we can be set free!
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:3636
"We are not "free" to sin; we are free not to sin." *quote from The Gospel Uncensored
Christ was free of sin therefore He was free from the slavery of sin too.  As true man in the flesh He was tempted as you & I are.  Yet He freely choose to follow His Father's will and not  sin since He was also true God and there was no sinful nature in Him.
When we become Christians, He gives us the freedom from the slavery to sin.  We now can choose not to sin because of the faith of Christ. We know that even when we do sin, Jesus already paid the price.  My sin ~ all of it ~ was paid for in blood by Jesus.  He paid the humongous price – the wrath of His Father for the sins of the whole world - on Himself.  In His death He became our sin offering.

The law of Moses was unable to save us
because of the weakness of our sinful nature.
So God did what the law could not do.
He sent his own Son
in a body like the bodies we sinners have.
And in that body God declared an end
to sin's control over us
by giving his Son
as a sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 8:2(NLT)

Only Jesus could be worthy and worth enough to pay for the whole field (all people for all time) because He is God, the Son.
It is amazing that I am saved.  That God choose me for Himself like a bride - that's who we are in Christ, clinging to the faith.  The church: Christ's bride.
Amazing that we are a treasure to God! Why would I be a treasure to God? I am a treasure because I am His child.  It is not what we are but because of who we are in Christ Jesus:  God's children.

God uses many analogies to show that love:
Parent to child:
How often I, wanted to gather your children together
the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!
But you were not willing!
Matthew 23:37
"So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him."
Matthew 7:11

Or the love between a husband and wife:
Revelation 19:7
7 Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready.
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"
Ephesians 5:25
Or of a friend:

I do not call you servants anymore,
because a servant does not know what his master is doing.
But I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you everything
that I have heard from my Father.
John 15:1

Or brothers and sisters:
Hebrews 2:11-13
11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.12 He says,
"I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the assembly I will sing your praises."
13 And again,
"I will put my trust in Him."
And again he says,
"Here am I, and the children God has given me."

All of us, hopefully, can identify at least to one of these relationships and understand in part how great God's love is for us and long for this love of God through Christ Jesus.  Today so many do not even have the love of father/mother to child to relate to.  How can they ever imagine or know God's love?  They ought to at least acknowledge God in fear and awe.
Proverbs 14:27
The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
turning a person from the snares of death.

Without the fear of the Lord you can not feel your sin.  Be thankful you can feel it and grieve, pleading for forgiveness ~ because some do not even feel the shame of their own sin.   To them sin feels "natural"; they barely know it exists ~ at least not in themselves. (They are quick to spot it in others though.)  They do not know they sin against God.  The reject that He even exists though He has shown Himself as the Creator by His very creation! Look at the micro and macro! How can you not believe this wonderful world?! But what if you cannot see that? Lord, help them to see You so they may seek You, Father, for Your Love and mercy.  Run to the Father's arms like the prodigal son, repenting of your foolishness. Surrender to be free in Him and He will send His Holy Spirit to enable you.

"continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
  for it is God who works in you
to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."
Philippians 2:12-13

We can divide what we seek, what sin tempts us into bondage into three groups that you have heard before: the flesh, the world and the devil.  If we look close they all share the sin of idolatry; putting other things or people as your god instead of GOD.
Some of us struggle with sins of the flesh/body.  Slaves to the substance or action that temporarily makes us feel good or whole, it substitutes God and we depend on them to fill us. We can become diseased with addiction. Whether it is food, tobacco, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping; the list of addictions is endless.  Others it is the desire itself.  They surrender to the feeling it gives more then the thing itself yet they are never satisfied, never full no matter how satiated they continue the futile pursuit because they never can be filled or made whole with anything but God.
To other people the caos of the world and the troubles of this earthly life create a fear.  They can not surrender to anyone or anything.  These proud ones often live in desperation and anxiety to manage all within their domain.  They can not stand to be out of control.
When the fear of the world overtakes a person it can create many illnesses of the mind. Depression can set in because we give up in despair against all that has, all who have controlled us against our will and taken away our hope for wholeness.
Then the sin of the love of money:
1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil:
which while some coveted after,
they have erred from the faith,
and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

We humans tend to forget God when things are too good for too long.  Is that why Jesus said:

"And again I say unto you,
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Matthew 19:24
It is difficult for the rich to see their need for God. Although not impossible for the middle, lower and poor to still crave money over God for the rich because loving money more than God is easier for them to succumb to than to those with less. When you have nothing or very little you have no choice but to depend every day on God.

At first it seems the love of money to links the sins of the flesh to the idolatry, but it soon can follow the most corrupt – the hunger for power.
Craving power; whether it is a bully over another person, a parent over a child, a man over a woman or a tyrant over a country … or over the world.  Thinking you can be like God; the sin of Satan.
Satan can never be forgiven. He will never repent. He never wanted to surrender to God again, so he choose sin forever.  Satan had God's presence and no longer wanted to be in God's Glory.  How horrid!
Yet was this not Adam and Eve's sin?  They walked with the Lord in the garden in the cool of the day. To choose a lie and thus death over God who is the source of Life.
Praise God He has chosen to bend down to save man through Jesus' life, death and resurrection!
6 Jesus said,
"I AM the Way — and the Truth and the Life;
no one comes to the Father except through me."
John 14:6

Jesus, the Word ~ what is heard and known.  God the Father is made known through the Son.
No man has seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has declared him.
John 1:18
Jesus is the Good Shepherd ~ help us Lord to hear Your voice!
John 10:25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one."

Surrendering to God does not mean we do not have free will to make life choices. We do, but we are learning to trust and to put God's Will first.  We trust that He will enter into our choices and redeem them.
Romans 8:28(KJV)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
WOW!  When I love God, He enters into all parts of my life, even my sinful choices, and work it to my good. This doesn't mean He will save us from the temporal consequences of our sins, (if you steal, lie, any sin: there are consequences that are harmful or punished) but from the eternal consequence~ eternal death.  Even in our weakness, He can still use us to  His purpose.
Sometimes we can't see His good. We see only the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Amongst troubles of this life faith is hard yet all the more necessary.  How can we see the good God is working in death or horrible suffering? None of which is His will, they are a result of mans' sin.  Yet He enters into it to do good for those who love Him.
When you love, you trust.  Or is it when you know you are loved by God that you trust Him and can surrender to Him.
"We love Him, because He first loved us."
1 John 4:19

This leads us to the relationship of Lord and Master to servant/bondsman.  Many of us in the western modern world do not have any true sense of this relationship and our view is tainted by the cruel abuse man commits over another in this relationship.  Yet with God it is a truth.  We are His servants and He is our Lord and Master.  It is a Loving relationship where our Lord cares for us. When we trust Him, when we surrender to Him, He elevates us to be His adopted children.
He is God. Surrender to Him we must, whether willingly or on Judgment Day:
"so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,"
Philippians 2:10
It is written: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.'"
Romans 14:11
by
~Sharon Rose Rantala~

* "Remember, it is not for bondage that we have been set free; it is for freedom that we have been set free. We are not "free" to sin; we are free not to sin." The Gospel Uncensored by Ken Blue & Alden Swan

Additional Bible Passages:
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
For all have sinned,and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:22-23
Romans 6  (GNT)
Dead to Sin but Alive in Union with Christ
1 What shall we say, then? Should we continue to live in sin so that God's grace will increase? 2 Certainly not! We have died to sin—how then can we go on living in it? 3 For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death.4 By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.
5 For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was.6 And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.7 For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin.8 Since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.9 For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again—death will no longer rule over him.10 And so, because he died, sin has no power over him; and now he lives his life in fellowship with God.11 In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.
12 Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self.13 Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes.14 Sin must not be your master; for you do not live under law but under God's grace.
Slaves of Righteousness
15 What, then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under God's grace? By no means!16 Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey—either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being put right with God.17 But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were slaves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received.18 You were set free from sin and became the slaves of righteousness.19 (I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves.) At one time you surrendered yourselves entirely as slaves to impurity and wickedness for wicked purposes. In the same way you must now surrender yourselves entirely as slaves of righteousness for holy purposes.
20 When you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.21 What did you gain from doing the things that you are now ashamed of The result of those things is death! 22 But now you have been set free from sin and are the slaves of God. Your gain is a life fully dedicated to him, and the result is eternal life.23 For sin pays its wage—death; but God's free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.