Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Who is your master? You can only have one master, and it can't be yourself. If I try to be my own master, doing what I please, I become a slave to sin. Or, if I seek out obedience to Christ I become a slave to Christ. We can't have both. The unbeliever can only be a slave to sin, unless brought to repentance. As a believer however we become slaves to Christ and his righteousness. Believers do however, struggle between the old slavery to sin and the new righteousness. If they did not, Paul would not have needed to write in verse 15, "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" As Christians we have been brought from death to life. We have died to sin in Christ's death on the cross, and raised to newness of life with Christ's resurrection. Any sin in our lives as Christians should not and cannot continue, it is no longer in our nature. Followers of Christ must examine their lives to determine where there is sin and rid themselves of it. We must seek in everything to please Christ. This is who we are. If this process to please Christ seems burdensome, we can know that we are still operating in our sin nature. The sin and burden are not who we are. We must realize that we are Christ's and when we follow him, we walk in his life and freedom. Romans 6:23 says "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." This verse is not only for the future application of eternal life in heaven or punishment in hell. The wages of sin is death to us now, and when we sin we experience death. But when we walk in the free gift of Christ's righteousness we can experience eternal life now. Eternal life does not have to wait until Heaven, it can be lived and experienced now by living to please Christ. Think about it, the Bible never places a limitation on when eternal life begins other than when we first come to follow Christ. It never says that you will have eternal life once you get into Heaven. It says in John 3:16, "whoever believes in him (Jesus) should not perish but have eternal life." Eternal life is the life we have been called to now and it is infinity better than a life of sin and death we can experience now. We have eternal life now, and when we walk in Christ's righteousness we can experience eternal life now. As a Christian this is who you are.