Volunteer Slave

      It’s a Friday night and the local carnival is at its best. You go with your friends to have good time…ride some rides, eat great food, play games, and just have fun. As you’re making your rounds at the carnival you become enticed when you hear a man yelling “ladies and gentlemen, step right up to discover my one and only fun house attraction! And don’t forget that whoever gets to the end first gets a prize and it’s all for free!!!” Well just like any other person, you love to get free stuff, so you and your friends walk right in to have the ride of your lives. And guess what? You were the first one out, so you get a prize! Once all your friends are out you all go to exit until the man that was just enticing you to come into the extremely fun “fun house”, tells you that each of you need to pay $24.99 for your adventure. You and all your friends look at each other with pale faces because you have just spent your last $5 your parents gave you and now you had no way to pay for the “free” fun house. Just like anybody would run right into a free fun house adventure, we run right into sin without knowing the consequences. We only look at the appearance of what Satan sets out for us to fall right into. Once we are indulging in our sin we become blinded and drunk with happiness. But once our high is over, the true meaning will surface. And Satan then traps us. We become a slave to sin. Once we are in, it’s not long until we become buried in his shadow and God will no longer be seen in our lives. We choose all of this without ever knowing it. At some point in our lives we will all be a slave to sin, but whether or not you choose to break those chains for the truth is your decision. Sin is the only thing we can EVER be slaves to, we are never slaves of God….we are His children. So don’t view His instructions as commands that He gives you as a slave. If He wanted us to be His slaves then in all His instructions He would put a threat at the end. Now He often says “be careful” or “watch out” because He is looking out for us not casting a curse or pain on us. But remember we are only a slave to sin if we choose to sin. Now you must be thinking…”well we all sin so therefore we must all be slaves to Satan.” No, that’s not the case. Yes we all sin and we all can be a slave to sin but after you sin do you bring God back in for forgiveness? Or have you become numb to God? When we constantly sin and let that control us, because we feel like it’s the right thing to do, is when we become slaves to it. You have a choice to make your lifestyle pure. And if you make the decision to not have God in it then that is an open invitation for the devil to take control of everything. Just like the guy did at the fun house. The group of friends stepped right into a trap without even knowing it because they were blinded by what seemed fun. But if they really looked closely they could see that the man was also standing right in front of a worn out sign that read the price $24.99. And if they looked closely to the “free prizes” they would of realized that they all still had their price tags from Walmart that were just stolen, but nobody else knew any different.  We all get caught by the enticing trap of sin, so don’t feel like you are the only one. But we could also prevent from completely falling into the trap and coming out blinded. So do yourself a favor and don’t volunteer to be a slave. Have you ever looked up the exact definition of slavery? In Wikipedia the first two sentences are as followed: “Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation.” Just look at those underlined words……..can you see why it’s SO important that we make sure we aren’t slaves of Satan’s sin? Do you think you would go into that fun house or give into camouflaged sin if this definition was pinned to the front of it? I challenge you this week to be aware if you are making God numb in your life and reverting to slavery in sin. Get out now because God wants a relationship, not a colony of slaves.




Word of the day:  "You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master."
                         ~Genesis 4:6-7