Becoming a Slave

"I just want to be myself!", "I don't want to just follow the crowd or fit into some mold", "I want to be my own person". These are the kinds of things I hear people, including myself, saying often. It seems that the atmosphere we live in is one of a people who are obsessed with being free, and ultimately one of a people who want to choose who they can be. No one wants to be someone else’s slave, however, the nature of debt, forces those within its confines to a life of slavery. As the Proverb that we read on Sunday explained, those who are in debt are slaves to their lenders, and this is contrary to what Christ wants for His followers. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explains:

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.-Matthew 6:24

Our Father in Heaven loves us so much He doesn't want us to be slaves to our debt; in fact, He states that in order to follow Him, one must choose to get out of debt. God made us and He knows our need to be free, and He wants us to be free of the fear, stress, and embarrassment, involved with debt. The crazy idea is that in order to be free, we must surrender ourselves, and become a slave to someone else. In a letter written to a church in Rome, Paul, an apostle, explains the importance of being a slave:

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness-Romans 6:18

Wow, according to Paul, in order for us to be truly free, we must become slaves to righteousness. Slaves to Jesus. As Christ himself stated, we cannot serve two masters, we must choose. Debt is a prison, and it will keep us away from the things we truly desire. In order to be free men and women, we must first become a slave to righteousness. And what a beautiful contradiction, what sweet irony: I have found myself the most free, when I am a slave to Christ.

Being free from debt is not easy though, it takes strong discipline. It may mean that you can't drive the nicest car or that you have to flip burgers or that you won't be able to go out to every social event that you want to. In the end, as we learned last Sunday, our self worth is not found in these things, but in the love of Christ Jesus. We choose not to be slaves to debt, but to the love of Christ Jesus and His Righteousness.


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Pray
That God would allow you to be free of debt, and to live your life as a slave to righteousness.