But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”
Galatians 4:30
While much of the world is grey, I think we like it when things are either right or wrong. On or off. Light or dark. Left or right. North or south. We are comfortable with the certainty of it.
Life is just frustrating when things aren’t this way. Think about the last cell phone conversation you had where the call kept going in and out. You were listening and then, silence. They you heard them again, interrupted by more silence. Then you start dancing the “Can you hear me now” twostep.
Or the call was just dropped. You lost them. Filled with disappointment, you hit redial, but nothing happened. Or you went right to voicemail. Your frustration grows as you keep trying to reconnect but are continually frustrated with failure.
Then you think, “This never happened on Star Trek! They never lost a call when they tapped that badge on their uniform. Or whipped out their communicator from their back pocket.” But then you remember that you’re not in the late 24th century.
While I’ve been an involuntary observer many times, one such event is at the top of my list. A passenger in the vehicle I was riding in was talking with a close relative about where to meet. The call kept going in and out. In and out. They redialed. And redialed. And redialed.
After about four minutes of failure, they threw the phone on the floor. This was followed by their colorfully expressing their frustration through some very vivid language that censorship rules and good taste prevents me from repeating here.
Yes, there is a clear dividing line with some things. And freedom vs. slavery is one of them. Freedom and slavery can’t be in the same place at the same time. We can’t be free while also being slaves. There’s no such thing as being a part-time slave. We’re either one or the other. There’s no middle ground.
And there is no doubt about what people will chose. We will always, always, always chose freedom. It’s what we want. What we desire. What we were made for.
It’s like holding our breath underwater. We don’t need to think about coming up for air. We feel it deep down inside. When our lungs begin to ache, we don’t have to call a meeting or text our friends to discuss what to do. No, we act. We instinctively come up to the surface.
Getting out of and away from slavery is the same. Whether it’s slavery to a person, an organization, or an addictive habit, we all want and crave freedom.
The same is true with spiritual slavery. While spiritual slavery doesn’t use physical chains, it still holds us hostage. We are prisoners to its invisible chains that stop us from being the person God made us to be.
God made us to be free. To be his child: his son, his daughter. Spiritual slavery puts up a wall that we cannot climb over. It builds a fence with electrified barbed wire that won’t let us out. It holds us in a prison more real than any federal maximum-security jail.
We need to see spiritual slavery for what it is: slavery. Period. It’s not trying to help us, but to keep us away from what and who we were made for. It’s doing everything possible to hold us down. Hold us back.
Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster… Oh, that you would choose life.
Deuteronomy 30:15,19 NLT
God has given himself as the way to break the chains that hold us as slaves. Hold us prisoner from him. Hold us from the life he made us to live. He’s also the way to break the whip that’s used to inflict so much pain in our lives[1].
It’s time to make the choice that’s right in front of us. To decide to get rid of the things that tie us down into slavery. For many of us, we’re held hostage by guilt. And for some, the whip of shame has been beating on us for so long that we’ve forgotten that there’s another kind of life.
God is offering another kind of life. A life of freedom. It’s right there in front of us. He knows what we’ve gone through[2]. He’s paid the price to set us free[3].
Choose his freedom. Choose today.
[1] Isaiah 9:4 TLB
[2] Hebrews 4:15
[3] Colossians 1:14 EASY
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