The Word of God makes it clear that we are all in bondage. Before Jesus shows up, we are in bondage to sin and death; after Jesus raises us from death to life, we are in bondage to Him.
Christian, how well are you wearing your “chains” for Christ?
Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
(Romans 6:17-18)
We are either slaves to sin or slaves to our Savior. In the passage above, the apostle Paul described the supernatural change in slave masters. And make no mistake, there is absolutely no comparison between masters! The slave master of sin pays wages to his slaves: “The wages of sin is death.” Our new slave Master gives a gracious, glorious gift: “The gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23).
I want to present an idea to you here that is definitely counterintuitive but extremely important for us to understand. The more we are in bondage to our Savior, the greater the freedom we experience in this life. That may sound strange, but it is undeniably true.
“It is for freedom that Christ set us free,” Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia (Galatians 5:1). When Jesus sits upon the throne of our lives, we begin experiencing the freedom we were created for. This freedom can be described as the ability to serve Jesus, for the very first time, in a way that is pleasing and acceptable in His sight and that also satisfies the deepest longings of our souls.
You see, when Adam and Eve listened to the serpent and turned away from God, they denied their very humanity. When you and I believe in the Gospel of redemption and begin serving our Savior, we also begin reclaiming the humanity that was lost in Paradise.
And remember this: our service to our Savior never “earns” wages. Everything we receive is always a gift from God! Even the service itself is a gift from God. God reorients our hearts so that they begin to beat for something other than self. We begin to see life from a perspective other than our own. We desire things we had never desired before and begin to deny some of the things we had always lived for.
So . . . what has you in bondage today? What has a hold on your heart? What have you been living for lately? If it is anything smaller than Jesus, it cannot satisfy and most certainly will not sanctify. You have been made by God for God, and until you are submitted to Him in every area of life, you will never grow into the person God is calling you to be.
I find it remarkable how many times the great apostle Paul identifies himself as “a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ” in the opening remarks to many of his epistles. Paul saw himself as a slave to his Savior . . . and he rejoiced! He was proud of his “believer’s bondage,” because the One he was in bondage to was the One who had set him free from his bondage to the world, the flesh, and the devil. To be sure, sin still remained in Paul’s life, as he freely confessed in Romans 7, but sin no longer reigned. Jesus reigned supreme and set Paul free to serve the only Master who could both truly fulfill him and forgive him all the way into glory.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 