A Slave to Something

John 8:30-36

When Jesus spoke, many put thier faith in Him. Sometimes I try to imagine what it must've been like to believe in Jesus, then to sit at His feet like Mary did, and learn what it meant to be His disciple - first hand, from the mouth of the Savior.

On this day He was teaching about freedom. Christ was telling them that if they held on to His teachings, they would know the truth, and that truth would set them free.

Free from what? Not the rule of Rome, Jesus wasn't referring to earthly oppression - though the believers take Him literally when they reply that they have never been slaves of anyone. Perhaps they had forgotten Egypt and the time thier ancestors spent oppressed by slave drivers into forced labor... (See Exodus 3:7-9).

Jesus wanted them to know about another type of slavery. "...Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." We sin when we are disobedient to God. For example, Jesus gives instructions found in Matthew 6:25-26, 34 against worrying. To worry, then, would be sin. Who of us hasn't allowed the futility of worrying take root in our life? Our mind labors over the "what ifs" of tomorrow, the "if only I could go back and do it differently" of the past,  until the weight of it all oppresses us.  We become a slave to worry.

Following Jesus instruction, "...Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.", would give us freedom. 

Paul wrote about the same slavery and freedom in Romans 6. He reminds his readers that they used to offer the parts of thier body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness (v.19), and that when they offered themselves to obey someone, they became slaves of the one they obeyed (v.16). If they offered themselves to sin, they became slaves to sin and that would result in death. There is another choice, though. We can offer ourselves as slaves to obedience - which leads to righteousness (v.16) - and gives us freedom!

However, this isn't something I can do on my own - neither can you. Determining that you don't want to sin, and that you do want to obey God is pleasing to Him. Unfortunately, we can't free ourselves from the slave driver that sin is. Only One has the power to release us from bondage - that One is Jesus Christ.

"So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."