I have been thinking since Easter about sacrifice and love; about being willing to give up what we are holding tightly to for those around us. What that looks like and what that means for our own lives. How hard it is in this world, in our society, to give up self, our agenda or our wants and desires.The next step of course, is to lay down our freedom, to become a slave, a slave of the One True God.
I was reading this morning from Revive our Hearts on the qualifications of being a servant and how it goes against every grain of our culture and world. Are we willing to be nothing more than, yet everything we could ever be, in the servant hood of Christ? I am not Kristin Choitz, blah, blah, blah....whatever those titles after my name could be. I am only and from now on, a bond servant of Christ. A slave of Him to whom I owe my life. I want no other title.
It is interesting that in what I do, I talk a lot about women's issues and "freeing" women spiritually and emotionally from abuse, strongholds, and literally from being held captive by prostitution, etc. and in that I am nothing more than a slave myself. One who has given up my right to do as I will. I have FREELY given up the rights to my own life to take that ear piercing as Nancy talked about in Exodus 21:5 in her radio program. To be marked, as one who is owned. She went on to say, that as a servant you would not take on this permanent mark of slavery to a Master unless you believed it was in your best interest. I have to be willing to believe that being a slave of Christ is better than anything else I could want, desire, have, be, own or experience in life. I am marked for all to see and in that, free to live the life God has laid out for me.
Freedom and slavery-two words that do not go together other than in the context of a perfect, loving God. My desire for the women in Zambia is that they would come to know true freedom through being a bond servant, one owned, by the lover of their souls, the One who came as a servant to FREELY die for them and for me and for you. Again, I surrender-I ask you Lord, to pierce my ear, that all may know, I am Yours...
Matthew 20:27-"...and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
