Levels of Slavery
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I must admit, this series
has been difficult to nail down. There seems to be so much that God is taking
me through right now. I hardly have time to write it in my journal, let alone
edit it for posting. On top of that, making it fit with the other parts. Well,
frankly it looks like a mess to me. Hopefully he can use that mess to speak to
some people. So, on that note, here’s what I’ve got.
A couple days ago, during
my morning Jesus time, we got on the topic of sin and our slavery to it. He
said something that I didn’t understand. He said that I wasn’t ready to move on
from fighting sin yet. I thought that was strange. I kind of thought we would
always fight sin while on this earth. So, he decided it was time for a lesson.
He first explained that
people have the wrong idea about how salvation and such works. See, the
unfortunate thing about the bible is that often times a turn of the page for us
constitutes several years for the people in the story. As such, we often feel
rushed to complete certain things faster than we can. We are also led to
believe that God wants it done that way and are left feeling like failures when
it doesn’t happen.
For example, the bible
says that we are freed from slavery to sin (the flesh) when we accept Jesus as
our savior. There are many forms of freedom in the bible. Freedom from
damnation (Salvation). Freedom from the bondage to the flesh (owned by sin).
Freedom from the law (Unattainable perfection). They are not all the same. ThisWebsite has a list of 25 verses that talk about freedom. None of these verses imply
that you are instantly free from all the bad things in your life simply by
deciding to follow Jesus (Please comment if you want to discuss each verse in
length).
The fact is, we
misunderstand what he is getting at. Christ’s work on the cross took back the
authority given to Satan by Adam. It means that Satan can no longer lay claim
to us and keep us under his thumb. But, just as Adam did, we have the ability
to choose who gets that authority. Christ’s salvation only applies to those who
come under his authority. Additionally, as explained in the first part of the
series, Satan is not the inventor of sin. We can create it ourselves without
his help. We can make ourselves slaves to our own flesh without Satan getting
involved.
So, to get to the point,
deciding to follow Christ does not mean you are now free of sin. It means that
freedom is now possible. As I explained in the last post, Jesus will not just
take all your sin away and leave you defenseless. He will first teach you to
fight. Sin must first be taken out. Then, you can grow in Him and be made into
a new creation. In short, Jesus did not go through all that suffering to get
you a ‘get out of hell free card’. He did it to free you from the grasp of sin,
thus allowing you to become righteous. Why? Because only the righteous can
stand in the presence of God, and here’s the crazy part, He wants to hang out
with us. So, he found away to make us righteous, so that we would not turn to
dust when he moved in.
He wants us to have this
freedom, but it is not instant nor easy. It takes work and battle. Jesus often
tells people that following him is hard and painful. Every follower of God had
to go through a refining period (the desert). Nothing in the bible ever says
that he just made everything easy.
In order to better
understand that battle and the nature of the salve hold sin has on us, Jesus
talked me through the levels, so to speak. Here is what he told me, unfiltered.
“Yeah,
I choose what I want to reveal. Trust me it’s all thought through. I understand
why ‘done with this step’, and ‘moving on’ are hard to understand. There will
always be something to work on.
Humans
are slaves to sin. When you are born, you are born into sin (Romans 5:12, Ecclesiastes7:20, Psalm 58:3, Psalm 51:5, Romans 5:19, etc). Satan is the king of earth and
therefore you are born in to his kingdom (2 Corinthians 4:4). The kingdom of
darkness. Since you are born in to his kingdom,
The
point is, choosing to follow me is the first step. It serves to save your soul,
but it doesn’t automatically free you from a slavery that you were born in to
and accepted. Trying not to get too complicated here, there are levels of
slavery to sin.
There
is the first level that you are forced into when you are born. This is simply
the fact that you will always be tempted. Your body will decay. Sin will be a
part of your life. You will make mistakes, tell lies, and steal. Everybody is
subject to this. This is what takes you away from me. When you decide to follow
me, you must choose to reject these things in favor of righteous behavior. It is
not too hard to break free of such things (Ephesians 4:17-24).
However,
most people, with very rare exception, fall into another level of slavery. This
is one that they choose for themselves. This occurs when a sin, such as
gluttony, lust, greed, etc., are willfully given lordship over a person’s life.
See, greed will come along to everyone and say, “don’t you want that” and
convince them to take it. Their conscience will convict them, all people have
this, and they will choose what to do. If they accept the conviction and return
the item and/or apologize and decide they don’t want to be like that, then
that’s as far as it goes. But, when a person decides to push their conscience
away and align with greed, “It’s not that big of a deal”, “They won’t really
miss it” “I deserve it”, “I need it more than them”, They sell themselves to
greed’s way of thinking. Therefore, since they have submitted willingly to
greed, greed now owns that part of them. Whatever part they submitted. It can
be finances, possessions, power, control. Whatever part they gave up belongs to
greed now. Greed will develop that part of them in its image, creating a person
who is consumed by greed in that area.
This
is the second level. Most people on the planet live here. They have various
parts of themselves that are owned by different sins. Their finances are owned
by greed or fear. Their sexual being is owned by lust or greed. Their
relationships are owned by fear or wrath. Their leisure life is owned by sloth.
So, on and so forth. Many people go through life not really noticing these
things. They fight little battles against what they think is wrong and try to
do what is right. All the while they are operating within the box the sin has
given them. For example. Someone is owned by sloth and gluttony. They gain
weight and are lazy. Their doctor tells them they are going to die young if
they don’t get healthy. So, they start working out and dieting. They force
themselves to do what they have to to get healthy, so they can stay alive and
make their doctor and family happy. This seems like a good thing, but it’s
actually still slavery. Fear has made them act. Sloth and gluttony gave some
ground to fear. This is done willingly to give the person the illusion that
they are doing well. If they believe they are doing well, they will not
question their slavery. See, sin doesn’t want you to know it’s there. It gives
you a false victory to keep you complacent. You find yourself constantly
battling, spending all your energy, deciding which sin to be a slave to. If you
eat and eat until you are fat, you are owned by gluttony. If you never enjoy
food again so that you can stay healthy, you are still owned by gluttony.
That’s
where most people are. These things have legal rights to that part of the
person’s life. Those rights must be taken. That part of the person’s life must
be given over to me. I control it and steer them away from the habits that keep
it in power. After a lot of hard work, the person is set free and able to be in
control. I then give that part of life back to them. They now have to maintain
it by silencing the temptations that come. Christians often skip this step.
They see the issue and start fighting the habits. This does not remove them
from the power of sin though. They can fight, some for a long time, but
eventually they are overpowered and fall right back in. Way too many Christians
are stuck in this loop believing that they are growing (Romans 6:1-23, Galatians 5:1, 2 Peter 2:19, 1 John 3:6, 1 John 1:9).
The
next level is someone who has given themselves over to a sin so fully that it
directs their path. It pushes other sins out of the way and every part of this
person’s life is controlled by this sin. People who are so obsessed with sex
that they have sex with anyone and anything. They make money to take people on
dates. They buy clothes to be attractive to earn dates. Everything in their
life is directed at this goal. Many large business owners do this in regard to
greed. They live, eat, drink, and make love to greed. Relationships they have
need to benefit the business. They will sleep with someone to gain an edge. Everything
is for more money or power. I could go
on, but you get the point. This is a very deep ownership that this person has
cultivated for a long time. They often don’t want to give it up. They will hold
on to it for dear life. The only way to save someone from this is for a
catastrophic event that destroys everything they have put into this thing. Then
they are left with a choice to let it go and change, or they live in defeat and
depression because their ‘life’ has been taken. They either submit to me and
grow, or they blame me and leave me forever.
The
final level is someone who has committed to sin and revels in it. They are the
embodiment of sin in the flesh. They are children of Satan and there is no hope
for them. They are the murders, rapists, human traffickers, child molesters,
and frankly many politicians and dictators. Not to say that every one of them
is like this, but many are. They have completely committed to this sin. They
are kin with them. They look like them and their very existence disgusts me.
Many of these people are killed to spare them further depravity. Death for
these people is a mercy on their soul. Period.
So,
there you go.”
So, there are the levels
of slavery as he gave them to me. Most of us Christians fall somewhere in level
2. Some have more, and some have less, but very few, if any, have none. I have
spent the last year going through “the desert” having God strip away each part
of me that is enslaved by sin. That’s what he meant when he said I wasn’t ready
to be done. He was saying there will be a point where I have no level 2
slaveries. I am free of all obligation and control of sin. But, I am not ready
for that yet. He has more work to do in me. Most of us are like that, but I now
know that victory will come.
I have often heard people
say, “God wants us to be perfect, but we never will be”. I think that is
mistaken. Yes, we are born in sin and our bodies must die because of that, but
I do believe that complete freedom from slavery to sin is possible. Being
righteous is possible, through the power of Christ. See, Christ called us to be
like him. He even told his disciples that they would do greater things than he
did. Jesus was fully human. His complete adherence to the law was a human feat
powered by the holy spirit. Yes, we have all sinned in the past, but that
doesn’t mean we have to going forward. We are free from that obligation.
So, come my friends.
Submit to the king and let him transform you. It hurts like gold being refined
in the forge, but it is so worth it. The Holy Spirit cannot, will not, make a
home in you until these things are cleared out. God will not share space with
the false gods of this world. It’s foolish to think that he would share you
will your little addictions. So, come with me on this journey. Taste freedom
and know the King.
See you next time
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