September 4
“Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond-slaves of God.” (1 Peter 2:16)
| FROM Conformed to the World | TO Transformed in Christ |
| 8. Doing what I want, fulfilling my wishes, doing what pleases me, being my own boss. “I am captain of my own destiny.” | 8. Pursuing complete obedience to Christ, taking up cross daily, denying self to please God. “I am a bond-slave of Christ.” |
Paul said many times that he was a “bond-servant” or literally, “bond-slave,” of Christ. He opened his epistles with statements such as these, as if this was his title, his claim to fame, the most important characteristic about him that he wants others to know.
This is in sharp contrast to many Christians today. How many of us truly view ourselves as bondslaves of Christ? I know a few who to me clearly are bondslaves – faithful servants of God in India who have sacrificed everything to serve Christ – living examples to me of what it means to be bondslaves of Jesus. I know I certainly have not considered myself a bondslave, a person whose sole purpose in life is simply to discern the leading of the Lord and to do it, 24/7. That has not been true of me most of my life, but now it is my conscious goal and prayer.
As long as we view ourselves as our own agents, free to come and go and pursue this and that as we please, I think we will struggle to grow deeper in Christ and to have greater freedom from the clutches of sin. This is the goal, is it not, to only desire to do His will, to only desire to follow Him and serve Him, no matter what the cost? And as long as we think of ourselves as free to do this and that when it comes to our free time and what media we consume, as long as we reserve to ourselves the right to “relax” or “escape” or “unwind” in any way we choose, as long as we think that immoral images and movies are not prohibited and our choice to make, as long as we fail to view them as a violation of our love and allegiance to Christ and not a decision that we have the right to make, I think we will continue to stumble in these sins. We will continue to indulge our flesh, we will continue to seek out “secret pleasures” and harbor evil, immoral thoughts in our hearts.
We must make the transformation of viewing ourselves as our own free agents to come and go as we please and do this and do that as we please, to viewing ourselves as slaves of Christ.
ASSIGNMENT: Pray daily that God would give you the mindset that you are not your own, that you were bought with a price, and that you are slaves of Christ. Pray that God would make you realize that you are not free to engage in immoral activities or view immorality in any form, that you are not free to pollute your mind in that way and that it simply is not your choice. You are a slave, a servant, and as such you take direction only from Christ and receive refreshment not from earthly, immoral fantasies but from God Himself. Pray that He would bring about this transformation of thinking in your heart and mind.