Sloth? I think Slave!

Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (ESV)

I want to pose a question…is the slave who presents himself disobedient even a slave at all? In order to answer this question we have to define a slave in the context of this verse. In the Greek, slave translates into bond slave, or to put it in modern terms “love slave.” It carries the idea of one who has willingly given themselves over to the service of another. With this in mind, we draw a clear divide in the verse at hand. On one hand we have one who has willingly given themselves to the world, and on the other hand we have one who has willingly given themselves to Christ.

I feel like this is a lost art, both in the world and in the church. Few people today have willingly presented themselves to anything. Many grow up following the ways of this world, never asking questions or challenging why we do what we do. Same concept stands true for the Christian of today. We go to church not knowing why we do what we do, but nevertheless we follow the monotony of a 45/45 structure. Forty-five minutes of worship and forty-five minutes of a message, not a minute earlier nor a minute later. This going through the motions has produced, both in the world and in the church, a kind of lifeless breed. Not a slave but rather a sloth, both physically and spiritually.

You see for me, I don’t see it any other way. Although I have not always been a Christian, I have always been all in for what I believed in. For most of my life I presented myself as an obedient slave to my worldly master, drugs and money. That is I willingly pursued these things no matter what the cost. So why wouldn’t I do the same as a Christian? Why wouldn’t I present myself as an obedient slave to my heavenly master? Why wouldn’t I willingly pursue him no matter what the cost?

To answer my initial question…is the slave who presents himself disobedient even a slave at all? My answer to that would be absolutely not. A slave has already decided what it believes and of that belief they are sold out. If I was willing to let drugs control my every waking moment, then so it shall it be with Christ. For the one who is unfamiliar with this lost art form, may it be said of them; “I will spit you out of my mouth.” What good is the belief of a man, if all it creates is a lukewarm man?

We have not been set free to roam in aimless freedom. Rather we have been set free from, that we might be enslaved to. One may say freed from sin and enslaved to righteousness, but another might say freed from death and enslaved to life. What a beautiful thought, to give up my life that I might find life.