I was born a slave with no hope of ever being free, under my own power. For I ask you, what power does a slave have other than to serve the master? My master was a cruel one, but it was the only one I knew. "When I'd look for freedom he'd put more chains on me, and strangle my heart so that I'd live like a zombie."(Josh Garrels) there was no earthly means of escape. As you may have guessed my master was SIN. Jesus Himself said, "Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."(John 8:34). For I was born into this world with three strikes against me: I inherited Adam's original sin, the nature to sin, and any personal sins I would commit along the way; all of these would enslave me and the penalty for them was death.
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."(Rom.5:12)
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
In John 8:31 Jesus also states, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." For it is only through the study of God's word that we can come to an understanding of what the truth is, that is the gospel. It is only through the death of Jesus, the perfect Son of God, that we could have been Bought from the slave market of sin. Jesus was, "...a ransom for all..."(1Tim. 2:6), in the Greek text the word for ransom is Lutroo, and it means quite literally a ransom, or to bring forth a ransom. When you think about it we were bought for a king's ransom, literally the king was our ransom, He gave up His life so that we, the lowest of slaves might have freedom.
We are also told that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law..."(Gal. 3:13), the word redeemed comes from the Greek word Agorazo, which means, to go to the market and buy something or to be bought with a price. Now you can see the idea behind the Slave Market of Sin, Jesus literally went to the market to purchase you and I from a Law that we could never live up to, and the penalty of which was death. He gave us freedom from enslavement and death.
Now that we are free we have the privilege to choose our master. For no man is truly a master of himself, though we are freed from the slavery of sin, our old master is always there waiting with his chains. We can either go back to our old ways and be as, “A dog returning to its own vomit." (2 Peter 2:22, Proverbs 26:11), or we can follow the example set by the one who freed us.
“Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”(Phil. 2:5-7).
Now you may think that because you are free you are a god among men, but as Christ is our example we are to be humble as it says Christ “Emptied Himself, taking the from of a bond-servant.” I love that term Bond-servant, the definition of the word is: Devoted to another with the disregard of ones own interests, a servant, an attendant. One of the first things that comes to mind is the character Azeem from Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves, for those of you that haven't seen it, Robin rescues Azeem from a dungeon that he breaks out of while on the crusades. Azeem’s sentence was death, so after the two of them escape Azeem makes a bond with Robin that he will follow him wherever he goes until he can repay his debt of a life for a life. Robin does not ask for his help and he only freed Azeem because he was the easiest person to free. Throughout the movie the going gets tough but Azeem is always faithfully by Robin's side, no one is making him, and nothing is forcing him to stay. As Lloyd Christmas would say, “His word was his bond.”.
That is how we should be towards Christ, we should empty ourselves of any selfish ambitions, trade in our will for His, and serve Him by extending and advancing His Cause among men.
I am starting this blog with the intention of posting something in it at least once maybe twice a month, but I would like some help from you. If you enjoyed what I wrote please feel free to comment and please bug me if I don’t post anything for a while. Thank you and God Bless.
