(Romans 1:1) “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,”
(Exodus 21:5-6) “But if the servant, in fact, says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children and I won’t go out a free man,’ then his master is to bring him before the judges and he is to bring him to the door or the doorpost. His master is to pierce his ear with an awl, and he is to serve him permanently.”
Do you obey God out of fear or out of love? The answer to this question will tell you where you are in your relationship with Christ. Don’t worry, both answers are good as the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and Christ’s love compels us to live for Him and not for ourselves.
Most of us start off by accepting Christ out of the fear of ending up in Hell, or because of a miracle He did in our lives, and this is a good thing. However, the longer we faithfully continue with the decision to follow Him as our only Lord, the more we come to realize that there is no better life than that which Christ offers us.
Paul mentions that he is a servant of Christ, and what he is actually saying is that He is a bondservant, without salary or rights of any kind, as mentioned in the Old Testament. A bondservant was one who was given the option to go free after serving his master for 6 years. If he refused that freedom and decided to continue to serve his master for the rest of his life, then one of his ears was pierced as a symbol of this decision for all to know. From this point on the person became the property of the master and willfully renounced all his rights.
Paul is giving us an example of what we need to do. We need to come to that point in our lives where we declare that we no longer serve Christ because we have to, or because of the blessings, but because we love to. We, in fact, decide to become slaves to Christ and give up all our rights to make any decisions without consulting first the Holy Spirit. And we do this joyfully as so far all we have done separated from Christ has only brought us emptiness, solitude, and a broken life.
Sure, we still might fear God and worry about how He will correct us if we disobey, but this is only for our own good. As we mature in our spiritual walk, we will come to understand, just as we did with our parents, that even while we were being punished or scolded it was done from a heart of love and concern for our protection. Eventually, we stopped being afraid of our parents, we started to love and respect them and considered them as a vital source of wisdom.
Once we realize that God loves us, and has opened our eyes to understand that there is no better place to be than at His feet, we will appreciate the fact that Christ no longer calls us servants, but His friend.
Prayers
• Heavenly Father, You are God who tests the righteous. God who is with the generations of the righteous. The Lord who hears and delivers the righteous out of their troubles.
• Thank You Father that You have loved us and that all your commandments are for our own good.
• Thank You that You correct us when we disobey and show us with love where we have erred.
• Thank You for sending Christ to the Cross to set us free from damnation in Hell.
• Forgive us for not really understanding the depth of Your love for us.
• Give us today the revelation of all the benefits for having surrendered to Christ.
• We want to mature in our walk with You and willingly become Your servants.
• We choose today to become slaves to Christ and to live only for Your divine purpose in our lives.
• We ask that You start to treat us as friends and reveal to us the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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• We ask in Jesus’ Mighty Name. Amen