Thursday, March 29, 2007

On Slavery to Christ, and Why It's Not a Bad Thing

In another forum, in response to a post stating that the poster was "a slave to Christ", there was the terse response,

"if you want to be slaves go ahead . I am a free man and I will stay a free man until I stop existing".

The problem with that statement is that, we're all slaves to one thing or another in this life. Some are slaves to money, to food, to fashion, to relationships, to sex, to greed.... whatever. Name your poison. Everyone has driving forces in their life about which we can do virtually nothing. Its our condition, and how we as humans were made. We need and desire and crave purpose, and through our cravings we become slaves to that which feels like it will give us some fulfillment.

Through Christ, accepting his resurrection as a real thing and understanding that because he rose from the dead He proved that he has the power and authority, given him by God, to forgive sin and grant eternal life, I've chosen to become a slave to God and righteousness... the good things in life. I'm a slave to kindness, honesty, patience, and simple unadulterated joy. My life has very difficult times, but I have the tools, through my relationship with Christ and an understanding of the eternal nature of my existence, to pass through those times with peace.

Slavery has a negative taste in our western mouths because of our history. Any time a human subjugates another human against his/her will, it's a horrible thing.

But to subjugate oneself, freely, to the benevolent living God, understanding God has my best interest at heart in all things, knowing He has forgiven me of all my sins and made me clean before Him, and that he accepts me as an adopted son, God becomes both my master and my loving Father who loves me and knows me better than anyone else in existence.

It becomes my opinion, then, (and dare I say the opinion of Paul and other followers of Christ) that to freely become a slave to the Living God, the granter of all things good, knowing that my life WITH God is far, far better than any life WITHOUT God.....it is a better life than to stand on my own before the Living God and demand He respect me for my own works.

How any human thinks they have authority or the right to stand before God and demand anything from their creator is just beyond me. If that's the path you choose, to rail against God on your own, I wish you luck with that. I don't think "the goddess" (this participant claimed to worship in some fashion) will help you much, but feel free to ask her. Let me know if she answers you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was going to ask what about slavery to not-so-nice things, but then that seemed such an obvious answer, that Christ is a better option. Then I realized again that many, dare I say most, people aren't enlightened to that...