Slave or Freedman?

Romans 6:6-7 tells us we are no longer slaves to our sins, our slavery ended when Christ died on the cross and we surrendered our life to Him. The difference between a salve and servant is free will. A slave has no choice in obedience, a servant chooses who and when he will serve and obey his chosen master. The book of Joshua tells us that we must make a choice in who (what) we will serve, and if we choose the Lord, we must serve him in all sincerity and truth.

14 "Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! 15And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." – Joshua 24:14-15 (NKJV)

If we truly have a choice, why do we feel like we have no choice at times? It is because of deception. Not only does the enemy deceive the saints (all Christians), our flesh also deceives us. The bible talks about how hard change is, but our flesh makes us believe deliverance should always be pain-free. IT’S NOT!!! In order to change, we first must become disciplined in right choices. Paul says in Hebrews that there is no discipline that does not start with some type pain at the beginning:

“For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].” – Hebrews 12:11 (AMP)

We need to remember Psalm 30:5b when we are going through the pain of change, “Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning." How true that is when we start a hard change. During the day when we are making the hard choices, it is so painful and it seems like it will never end. But then comes the morning when we look back on all the good, right choices we made throughout yesterday, and we are made full of joy. We need to remember that when it gets tough, we will have such great joy tomorrow when we look back on our choices of today.

We need to remember we are no longer slaves to sin under the law, we are instead freedmen. Christ broke our chains of slavery when he took our sins with Him to the cross.

6 We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin. 7 For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men]. –Romans 6:6-7 (AMP)

The law can only condemn the guilty when mistakes are made; it cannot heal or restore righteousness (right-ness) with God (or do anything else). Instead, we need to stand in our freedom, remembering we are freedmen in Christ, choosing to serve a loving and caring God and Father. When we mess up and make a mistake we are free to confess it to Christ, and Him ask for forgiveness, healing and the strength to learn from the mistake. We no longer have to be afraid of the “punishment” that once came under slavery when a mistake was made…We now have the freedom to rejoice in all things and learn from our mistakes. We are free to ask to be made righteous before God, having our sins forgiven. And we are free to walk in the love of Christ Jesus and our Heavenly Father at all times…Even when we are not perfect!

Slaves are punished; cherished servants are loved, trusted and blessed. I CHOOSE to be a servant of Christ.

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Comment (1)

  1. Librada

    Great post, really enjoyed it!
    — Librada

    http://www.bigconceptdesigns.com

    Reply

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