Romans 6:16
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Two projected outcomes. One of them has an infinitive amount of ways to achieve, the other, one. We all know which outcome has only one path that leads to its achievement. A funny thing slavery is, not that the unjust forcing of labor on others is funny, but the mentality required to participate in it. Especially when it comes to our desire to be masters over own persons. I know that in my own limited and somewhat juvenile experience, that even while being a Christian, was making myself a slave of my flesh, and making myself a slave of the devil. It's not that I had to be, for Jesus had taken my sins, at least, the ones hat I had given to Him. As for the ones I really enjoyed, I hung out to those, for safe keeping of course. It was fully my decision and fully within my power to release them and run into Jesus' loving arms knowing that He had already broken the bonds of my sin, I just willingly hung on to some of it. Now, because I was and am in complete control over whether or not I give something to Jesus, seemingly, the whole concept of slavery would be eliminated. But this is a grave error that I know I have a tendency to make. I underestimate the way I am born to think. I don't give enough credence to the power that my emotions have over my mind. Then, even in that statement, I show that I do not fully consider the wickedness of my own thoughts. So now we are left with someone, me, who is full of emotions that are not derived from God, and a mind that is only influenced by God when I let it be. My own emotions try to make that a rare occasion when it concerns something or someone I am fond of. At this point, it is safe to say that anyone who decides they can successfully navigate themselves through life based off of their emotions and thoughts is a fool. They are especially ignorant if the believe that they could be good enough for heaven at the end of such a life being slaves to the very thing they profess to have mastery over, their flesh. For the sake of simplicity, let's combine our minds and emotions into one entity and call it our flesh. I know in my case that this is a fact that the entirety of my mind and the entirety of my emotions are evil. Even that choice to become a Christian was a selfish desire to not go to hell based on an exterior drawing of Gods Spirit and grace. At this point, we now have the freedom of choice, where before we didn't. We can now choose to let the newly residing Holly spirit work in us, or we can stay at a level of base Christianity reserved for those who are simply saved out of an instinct of self preservation. They, even though they have the option of freedom, choose to deny it and live in bondage. I am not going to conclude this with a cliche question of, "what master am I going to serve?", but a prayer that God would be the master of my life on account of me giving Him things I want.
Application: Selah
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Two projected outcomes. One of them has an infinitive amount of ways to achieve, the other, one. We all know which outcome has only one path that leads to its achievement. A funny thing slavery is, not that the unjust forcing of labor on others is funny, but the mentality required to participate in it. Especially when it comes to our desire to be masters over own persons. I know that in my own limited and somewhat juvenile experience, that even while being a Christian, was making myself a slave of my flesh, and making myself a slave of the devil. It's not that I had to be, for Jesus had taken my sins, at least, the ones hat I had given to Him. As for the ones I really enjoyed, I hung out to those, for safe keeping of course. It was fully my decision and fully within my power to release them and run into Jesus' loving arms knowing that He had already broken the bonds of my sin, I just willingly hung on to some of it. Now, because I was and am in complete control over whether or not I give something to Jesus, seemingly, the whole concept of slavery would be eliminated. But this is a grave error that I know I have a tendency to make. I underestimate the way I am born to think. I don't give enough credence to the power that my emotions have over my mind. Then, even in that statement, I show that I do not fully consider the wickedness of my own thoughts. So now we are left with someone, me, who is full of emotions that are not derived from God, and a mind that is only influenced by God when I let it be. My own emotions try to make that a rare occasion when it concerns something or someone I am fond of. At this point, it is safe to say that anyone who decides they can successfully navigate themselves through life based off of their emotions and thoughts is a fool. They are especially ignorant if the believe that they could be good enough for heaven at the end of such a life being slaves to the very thing they profess to have mastery over, their flesh. For the sake of simplicity, let's combine our minds and emotions into one entity and call it our flesh. I know in my case that this is a fact that the entirety of my mind and the entirety of my emotions are evil. Even that choice to become a Christian was a selfish desire to not go to hell based on an exterior drawing of Gods Spirit and grace. At this point, we now have the freedom of choice, where before we didn't. We can now choose to let the newly residing Holly spirit work in us, or we can stay at a level of base Christianity reserved for those who are simply saved out of an instinct of self preservation. They, even though they have the option of freedom, choose to deny it and live in bondage. I am not going to conclude this with a cliche question of, "what master am I going to serve?", but a prayer that God would be the master of my life on account of me giving Him things I want.
Application: Selah
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