Not yours!

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I have been thinking a lot this week about the simplicity of the gospel and how to explain it to others.  The following idea really spoke to me, and so, I want to share it with you.

Historically, if you were a slave, you were treated as property to be sold, traded, mortgaged or willed.  Children inherited their parents' status as slaves.  You had no human rights at all.  Most slaves were not even able to earn any money, and so the opportunity to purchase their own freedom was rare.  

In the beginning, Adam and Eve were created in right-standing with God, free, but they voluntarily sold themselves into slavery when they yielded themselves to Satan.  Roman 6:16 says that to whom we yield ourselves to, his servants we are.  The Passion Translation puts it like this:

Don’t you realise that grace frees you to choose your own master? But choose carefully, for you surrender yourself to become a servant - bound to the one you choose to obey... (Romans 6:16)

Adam and Eve surrendered themselves and became enslaved by, and to, Satan.  Consequently, their offspring inherited this status of being a slave to sin!

Slaves cannot free themselves.  Likewise, we have no means of buying back our freedom from Satan.  We just cannot 'earn' our way out of it. We can't make enough to cover the 'cost' of buying it back, no matter how hard we work, or how good a slave we are. 

Instead, we need someone who is not a slave to redeem us (or buy us back); someone both willing and able.   There have been many people who have suggested they could free humanity from this slavery, such as Buddha, Mohammad, or well-meaning revolutionists, but the trouble is, slaves cannot free slaves. This is where Jesus comes in.   He was the only one who could satisfy the requirements to free us. He wasn't born of Adam's line, because he had no earthly father, but was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  He was 100% human, but he was born free from slavery AND he was willing to redeem us.  Because he was 100% God, he also met the requirement for paying the price for the sins of the whole world.  He alone has been both willing and able. 

In the 1960s, a woman named Mae Louise Miller from Mississippi, USA, was documented as finally being released from a life of slavery nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, declaring freedom for all slaves.   Her family had remained slaves because they were illiterate, had no TV or social media, and most significantly, no one told them!  They simply continued to believe that slavery was normal and that this was just how everyone lived, and their 'owners' did nothing to enlighten them, preferring to continue to use them for whatever they wanted.

Just like this family and others, too many people live, misguided or uninformed, ignorant of the declaration Jesus gave on the cross when he said, "It is finished!"   People just don't realise the slavery they were born into is no longer normal, and it's not enforceable, no matter what Satan wants us to believe.   When we accept that Christ paid for us, we have the right to turn around and say "I am not yours any more!  I am bought with a price!" (1 Cor 6:20)

Slavery to sin (with all its consequences) was never God's intention for mankind, and he has redeemed us from our own actions to bring us back into the freedom he created us for.

Today, our commission is to let people know the Spiritual Emancipation Proclamation has been made, and tell them that they can walk in freedom, with all the benefits that come with that freedom. 

I hope that encourages you today!  Have a great week.