0verthrownAmerica. The land of the free and the home of the brave. A country founded on the basic principle that people should be free. Our country is built on a foundation of freedom, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But when we have too much freedom, it’s easy to let ourselves fall into complacency. We’re free. We can do whatever we want, right? But at what point does our freedom work against us? It seems to me that we’re so used to being free living in this country that we’ve allowed ourselves to fall into slavery. We aren’t owned by other people, that’s not the kind of slavery I’m talking about. I’m saying that because we are so free, we are more susceptible to becoming slaves to our own desires.
If I want to play video games for hours upon hours every day, I can do that. Because I’m free. But as soon as that becomes the pattern of my life, I have used my freedom to become a slave. The video game is my master. I come when it calls, and I give myself to it completely. And when I play video games that much, I can’t help but build my life around them. When I’m not playing them, I’m thinking about them, or looking up information about them, or wishing I was playing them.
In a somewhat less drastic sense, that was me until a couple years ago. Of course, my days were filled with school and homework, but once that was done (and usually before the latter was finished), I was all about video games. If I wasn’t playing them, I wanted to be playing them, and they were probably on my mind. Because I was free to do what I wanted, I did just that, and it was dominating my life. I think it’s safe to say I was a slave to video games, and by the way I lived, I worshiped them as an idol.
But it doesn’t have to be video games. It can be practically anything- a strong desire, a car, a house, a job… you name it. This isn’t to say that these things don’t have their places- I still enjoy playing an fun and well constructed video game. And this is also not to say that freedom is a bad thing. God has blessed us with freedom in America, and I’m thankful for that blessing. However, we need to be careful lest we abuse that freedom and allow ourselves become slaves to the very things we’re free to enjoy.
There’s a catch though: we’ll always be a slave to something. Our lives will all revolve around something or someone, whether we like it or not. As for me, I’ll be a slave to righteousness. Jesus has saved me from slavery to sin, and now I’m a slave of the good master, the one who loves me and gave Himself up for me.
“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 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? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” (Romans 6: 15-19)
