Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. John 8:34
We live our lives thinking that we are in charge. Thinking that we’re in control of our own lives. Our successes belong to us because we’re the ones who accomplish them but our failures we blame on others and the effects that they had on our lives.
If we are deep in sin perhaps it’s addiction or pornography or even anger, we will often times blame our parents and never admit that we can’t control ourselves or our lives.
The truth of the matter is that we have no control. We have choices, not control. We can choose to do the right thing, which our nature knows to do (and please God).
Or we can choose those things that we think will bring us pleasure, but are actually bondage. We think that by choosing those temporary pleasures, sin, that we are proving that we are in control of our lives and no one’s going to tell us what to do. But in fact the enemy has already lured us into being a slave to our flesh, to temporary pleasures, to sin, and to him. He’s the one in control.
The scripture tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23). None of us is ever going to be perfect, this side of heaven. But Jesus offers us a better way.
If we will repent of our sins, except Jesus as Lord of our lives and serve Him, He will rescue us from the bondage of sin and through Him we will have eternal life.
You see the enemy wants to make us slaves, he wants to imprison us in the chains of sin and addiction. But Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with Him, He loves us and wants us to love and serve Him. When we do He abundantly blessed as us, by using our stories to rescue others from their bondage.
The sad part is that even after we have become followers of Jesus Christ, the scripture has to warn us not to pick up those old chains and put them back on (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery Galatians 5:1).
And it can happen so gradually we don’t even realize it…perhaps we miss a couple Sundays of church, then before we know it we aren’t going at all, we lash out at our family with that old anger, begin to curse like we used to and then we slip back into those old addictive behaviors.
We leaned over, picked up those old chains that once bound us, slipped them back on and slid the locks in place.
The enemy devised plans to lure us into being slaves to our sin. But, by trusting, following and serving Jesus we can resist. By equipping ourselves through the reading of His word, we can resist (Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Ephesians 6:11).
We get to choose whether we will be slaves to the enemy or servants of Christ, I pray that we would always choose serving the Lord.
He died for our freedom, pray that we would serve, love and honor Him and that others would be freed of their chains because they see Him in us and our behavior.
If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and have been a slave to sin and ultimately the enemy, I pray that you would desire to change that today. I pray that you would go to our Life Preserver page (https://forgiven-n-loved.com/life-preserver/) and pray the prayer that is outlined there. I promise you that there is no greater relief than that which takes place when we have been forgiven our sins and experience the love of Jesus for the very first time.
luv ya!
