For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
- Romans 7: 18-19
Even a man who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, would pen much of the New Testament scriptures understood bondage. Why? Not because he studied it but rather because he lived it. We all have our areas. Every human being lives in various degrees of bondage to various masters. Sometimes one master is so much stronger than another that we don't even realize the lesser master is there at first, and sometimes what seems to be the stronger master is actually one we chose ourselves to try to silence the first and deeper master.
What on earth? Let me give an example. I used drugs and alcohol for a short while, and then they used me. I became a slave to oblivion. I was such a slave that I didn't even try to quit for more years than I care to admit, even though I was slowly losing and destroying everything I cared about, including my ability to care.
Finally I felt a moment of clarity. I need these chains lifted. I couldn't get them off and could have no life with them on. I surrendered to a different master who promised to make me a son rather than a slave. I took steps to learn to submit to God, to be honest with myself and to learn to kill the selfishness within me. In the process I became awake, alive, spiritually and found freedom, for the most part.
For the most part? I rode that spiritual high many in recovery refer to as a pink cloud for a while, and then it hit me that while I was walking free from the obsession to drink and drug, I was not free. Not totally. Another master rose to claim his pound of flesh. Jesus said that we can't serve two masters, and I am not disputing that. What I am saying is that we can only serve one master at a time, but that we can be under the supervision of many little slave drivers, who just happen to be tools and subject to one. As the spiritual high I felt lessened and the emotions I hadn't let myself feel for years as an addict and alcoholic came flooding in, I found myself to be an unstable bottle of nitro, ever ready to explode at the smallest disturbance.
Anger ruled me as much as any drug ever did. I might go through a day or two or part of a day without an assignment and therefore have the illusion that I wasn't a slave because I wasn't in the fields. But let something not go my way or frighten me or trample on what I perceived as my rights, and without thought or hesitation I submitted totally and completely to rage. Anger made me its...well, anything it wanted at the time.
Afterwards I feel embarrassed and ashamed. I hate the anger that rises in me at times. Spent, exhausted, feeling used, I know that Jesus is right about two masters. When I submit to the Boss Man Rage I can't think about serving God, much less do it. There is no point in that moment where the light of Christ can be seen in anything I am thinking, saying or doing. Sometimes I am ashamed to say it runs its course, the job is done, and then, with the whip gone and no longer being driven, I acknowledge that I have returned to a former master and will, as Paul puts it, determine would be more what we would say, not to do so again. Other times, my true Master pours out enough grace for me to have a flash of clarity even as I work under the whip of another. God is there with power, love, grace and mercy if at that moment of understanding I cry out to Him for help, if I submit once again to His will. Sometimes in an instant, sometimes more slowly, the feeling of the whip on my soul fades, the fires of rage die down, and once again I find myself under the grace of my Creator.
I can not serve two masters. Once I am in submission to One I can not submit to the other at the same time, because their instructions are not comparable. One is calling to sow seed, tend the crop and harvest the fruit while the others are demanding it be cut down or burned out. But the will is a tricky and fickle thing. Most times I long to serve God, love the benefits of being in His service. But in those moments when a switch is flipped and I bow to another, it's not against my will. I want to be angry at that moment. I feed on it. It gives me pleasure even as it gives me pain. It makes me feel powerful and right.
Afterwards I may feel disgust and shame before that moment of asking for forgiveness and returning to that place of knowing that I am loved of God and clean before my Lord. But at the moment, in the moment, when I am in the grips of that which before and after I claim to hate and to be determined not to do, I am not in hate. I am loving my sin, eating it up like a dog returning to its vomit. But when not under the whip of rage, I know that living angry is not the life I want.
So why have I not found freedom from this master as I have the alcohol and drugs? There are reasons this master continues to call and reclaim his former property, but ultimately it boils down to while my spirit is new and free, it is housed in a mind and body still living under the curse of the fallen. Anger, and other masters that are enemies of the will of God in my life, know that as long as I am on this side of eternity and in this fleshly body they have a chance to pull my puppet strings. So they attempt to steal back that which was purchased from them on the cross.
We often see the statement Jesus made about serving two masters as a criticism of those who claim to desire relationship with God but also want what the world has to offer. After all, the context of the verse is about chasing wealth. But I also see it as a key to freedom and a promise. I can not serve multiple masters at the same time. That means when I am completely submitted to God, while I may hear the call to service from the other, I don't go there. I may feel the whip for a second, but in staying in the service to my Lord, it doesn't sting as much, I don't have to react, and He is there to pour out His grace so that I don't have to answer my former master.
I know this is true, because while those moments do come when I fail to stay in Daddy's field doing what He asked me to do and go to the place of bondage, they are lesser in frequency and in severity than before. I return to my former place less and less.As I continue to walk in grace there may come a day when the call to anger has no more power over me than the unexplained craving of a drink or drug that may come. I dismiss the latter now without much thought or concern because its power in my life is broken. It doesn't scare me or bother me. I simply remind myself that I am in service to another now and go on with my day. No matter how suddenly anger shows there will be grace to ignore its call. But I also know that there will be another who will begin to demand attention.
No matter how many areas of slavery may rise and call saying, you served me before, now serve me again, no matter how much my natural tendency may be to go that way and answer that call, to bow beneath that whip, no matter if it's a little master or a big one, the solution is the same. The freedom is found in service to the One who is greater than the greatest of that which would rule me. The solution in submission to Love rather than the whip. The answer lies is remembering that I am not my own but have been bought with a great price from my own will and the will of everything and everyone who would sow death rather than life in me and through me.
We can only serve one master at a time. Let us so fully listen to His voice and submit to His authority that the call of the old is drowned out and lessened, And the great truth and promise is this. There will come a day, when we see Jesus face to face, and never again will any call of any other master, not chemicals, not wrath nor lust nor greed nor selfishness nor any other power reach our ears. And on that day the war will be over, and we will be totally and truly free.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
April 12, 2016.
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