I'll Never Be Your Beast of Burden

What do you think of when you hear the word slave?  Is it an attractive picture?  If you were born during the 70s, like me, you probably think of Roots.  In this TV miniseries, a young boy is kidnapped from his native land, sold as a slave, savagely beaten and forced to serve a cruel master.  If you were forced to become a slave, you would not anticipate having an enjoyable time.  A slave has no rights.  A slave must either perform his or her duties or face the (often severe) consequences.  Perhaps you are more comfortable with the idea of a servant.  A servant is someone who serves an employer but is usually free to seek other employment if he or she chooses.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
John 8:34

But wait a minute, Jesus said that we are all slaves, or at least if we sin we are.  "What do you mean?", you might say; "I'm not a slave; I am free to do whatever I choose."  While this may be true, to a certain extent, you indeed are, in a sense, a slave.  You are a slave to whatever your life's greatest priority is.  You may be a slave to your family.  You may be a slave to your hobbies or your job.  Though I sincerely hope it is not the case, you may even be a slave to an addiction.  You may even be a slave in the literal sense I described earlier.

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Romans 6:16-18

Fortunately, Paul gives us another option.  You can, if you so choose, give yourself as a slave to God.  According to the Bible, God paid a steep price for you.  "You are not your own; you were bought at a price."  If this is true, it seems perfectly reasonable that God would expect us to exist as His slaves.

This is not a comfortable idea for most modern people.  Certainly, in this age of enlightenment, we should be smart enough to make our own decisions.  We may be okay with being servants, free to come and go as we please, but becoming a slave and giving up all our freedom is another matter entirely.  I would like to suggest that this is not actually an option.  We all have one master that we cannot escape; that master is death.  No matter how uncomfortable we may be with the idea, there is simply no escaping the fact that all of us will eventually face death.

Where does this leave us?  Apparently, like it or not, we are all slaves to something.  It seems to me the best thing we can do is to choose wisely what or who our master will be.  What choice will you make?