I think that whenPaul refers to himself as abond slave of Jesus (Romans1:1) this is one of the mostaccurate, beautiful illustra-tions that could be givenpertaining to the identifica-tion of a Christian.Jesus has freed usfrom bondage under the law,eliminating our struggle toplease God without the aidof Holy Spirit (Romans 7:6)Jesus also freed usfrom the bondage of sin(Romans 8:2). People havethis idea that if they areunrestrained and can dowhatever they want, thenthis will equal happiness. Theproblem is that since ourhuman nature is inclined tosin, this is inevitably whatwe’ll choose. Sin does notequal joy, peace or satisfac-tion. We only need to look atthe very people in our ownlives and even celebrities tosee the sad results of people‘doing what they want’, whichis: drug abuse, suicide, di-vorce, depression, addiction,to name a few and ultimatelydeath. What people antici-pate will make them freeactually chains them up and

“A servant gives service tosomeone, but a slave belongs tosomeone. We commit ourselvesto do something, but when wesurrender ourselves to some-one, we give ourselves up.”-Murray J, Harris

Januar y

2010

Prayer Requests

-recovery from ourcolds-a deeper intimacywith God and agreater prayer life-that God would con-vict the students oftheir sin, and theirneed for Jesus-to continue strong inour willingness toserve

www.joshandjenny.orgmakes them slaves.But we are nolonger stuck on a one-waystreet of sin which leadsto death. When Jesuscomes into our sin-corrupted heart, hesweeps it clean and re-places all of that garbagewith the fruit of theSpirit which is His ownnature. Although our fleshstill has a tendency to-ward sin, we have powerfrom Holy Spirit to resistthe devil and his tempta-tions.It may soundodd, but the Bible teachesthat Jesus gave us free-dom to become slaves. I’mnot speaking of humanslavery, but that we havebeen liberated to becomea slave of Jesus (1 Peter2:16). Just as Paul proudlydeclared himself to be, socan we also be a bondslave to Jesus.Deuteronomy15:16-17 gives us a cleardefinition of what itmeant to be a bond slave.After six years the mas-ter was to let his slavefree. However, if the slaveloved his master, then the slavecould willingly choose to remainwith him and serve him for allhis life. The bond slave identi-fies himself as belonging to hismaster by piercing his ear.The miracle of theChristian life is that we don’tserve God because we have to,but we serve God because wewant to. When we meet God,everything changes. Our priori-ties, goals, plans, and entirelifestyle is suddenly not gearedtoward advancing ourselves.We want nothing else but Godand to do nothing else butserve Him, and so we becomeHis slaves.To be a bond slave means thatwe willingly give our life up toGod because we love Him. He hasset our hearts free from sin sothat we may be able to chooseHim and choose a life devoted toHoliness.