Romans 6

I've been slowly making my way through Romans. And I do mean slowly. So right now, I'm finishing up chapter 6. Paul is pretty much the ultimate letter writer. I mean, I write letters, but wow! he is beyond words. Anyways, one of the really cool things in chapter 6 is the fact that it's talking about slavery. That might sound kind of weird, but this is slavery to sin and it's also slavery to God. Of course, there are some differences here. First of all, slavery to sin is our basic interpretation of the word slavery. We are stuck in bondage to something awful and it is truly detrimental to our lives. We can only escape this slavery by being freed by someone (or Someone) other than ourselves. Here's where the cool part comes in...God frees us and then, Paul says we are slaves to Christ. First thought, wait a minute...slaves??? Yes, slaves, but this slavery is similar to Paul's use of the word "bondservant." This servant chooses, willingly, to serve his master for the rest of his life. So, we choose to be slaves to Christ. We choose to serve Him for the rest of our days. We choose to obey Him. We choose to praise Him. In effect, we are choosing to chain ourselves again, but we chain ourselves to God and those are chains of love, not of pain. And God does not hold us back, these chains lift us up and hold us up and give us strength. Reading this, I never thought slavery and chains could be used as a good analogy for my relationship with God, but then I remembered the meaning of the word bondservant and what I choose to do every day because of my faith and relationship with Christ. Praise God for His love and His wisdom! :)