I get caught up in my rights as a believer and in trying to fit God into my plans and get Him to bless what I’m doing. I want God’s stamp of approval on my goals and aspirations. I have the mentality that most other American Christians have that if I am faithful, God owes me a good marriage and family, success, good health, long life, etc.

Then again, that goes against Biblical Christianity. I am not entitled to anything. In fact, it’s not even about me giving up my rights and choosing to go where God leads. It’s about recognizing that I have no rights in the first place to give up and understanding that if I call myself by the name Christian, I have no say in where God tells me to go or what He tells me to do.

I am God’s slave.

I know most translations will say servant, but that doesn’t quite capture the radical nature of who I am in Christ. It’s too soft. I am a slave, completely owned by God and completely at His mercy to do with me what He will, whenever He will. My job is to obey. Period.

The good news is that in slavery I have freedom. The good news is that when God calls, He enables me to do His bidding. I’ve always liked the old saying that God doesn’t call the eqipped, but He equips the called. And if Jesus is in me, then I have everything I need to be all that God has called me to be, according to 2 Peter.

We will either be slaves to sin and addictions or we will be slaves to Christ and His love for us. Anything else is a myth. So I choose this day to be Christ’s slave and to serve Him only.

What (or Whom) do you choose? And if you don’t decide, you’ve made your choice anyway. Choosing not to serve Christ, even if you’re not overtly choosing the other way, is still choosing sin. That’s just the way it works. So I urge you in view of all God in Christ has done for you and how much He loves you, to choose Him every single day.

Amen and amen.