Copyright by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved
To be a slave to love is not to be slave at all because there is no slavery in truly selfless love. When we are possessed by it we are, paradoxically, set free. This truth is important to remember when we read in the scriptures about being “slaves” to Christ. It is only love that authentically compels us to give ourselves totally to Him, and in that self-giving is our liberation.
The word “slavery” has a nearly universal negative connotation in the 21st Century. When we think of it in America we are naturally drawn to our corporate memory of the enslavement of blacks that existed in our country prior to the Civil War. It is a part of our past as a nation that the vast majority of us find morally repulsive. As a result, when it comes to personal liberty in the worldly sense, we have been consciously at the forefront of securing it for others, both at home and abroad, for much of our history since then; most of the time this has been a good thing.
The problem that stems from our glorification of legitimate civil liberties is that we have a tendency to assume that any giving up of our personal “sovereignty” to another will harm us. We chafe at the idea of belonging to another unless it is on absolutely equal terms, such as in earthly romantic love. This frame of mind and heart is also present among many believers. We have been conditioned by the radical individualism of our culture, often without even being consciously aware of it.
The result is multiple generations of Christians who keep God at a safe distance. There are those of us who sing the hymn “I Surrender All” while simultaneously knowing in our hearts that what we ought to be singing is more like “I Surrender Some”. The idea of voluntarily making Him the true Lord and Master of every aspect of our lives deeply disturbs us. It runs contrary to our desire to not be a slave to any one at any time.
So is there hope for we modern Western Christians? Are we condemned to keep the rightful Owner of our souls at arm’s length and possibly forfeit our relationship with Him altogether? Not necessarily. The answer comes in knowing the attributes of God or, more specifically, one: His infinite love for us.
I would venture to say that most, if not all, true Christians have experienced firsthand the reality of this love. These are the moments when we have viscerally come to know just what our Savior did at Calvary, and why, and for who. Such moments are beyond description. Perhaps the best way to relate these times of exultation is simply to say that we have been touched by the love of God, a love we have never known from anyone else nor ever will. Ten seconds of the received love of Christ is enough to undo us, to make us realize that we have been fools to want anything other than Him, the One who perfectly pursues the best possible outcome for our lives with a singular passion, He is, in short, the Lover of our souls
At such moments “slavery” to such a God does not feel like bondage, it feels like the greatest thing we could possibly imagine, and more than even that. We find ourselves wanting it, desperately. We know that we were made to receive this love and give it in return. We were made to enjoy it, to enjoy Him, forever.
These moments may be fleeting, but they whet our appetite for more and as we learn to seek Christ with all our hearts such moments continue to come, pointing the way towards final consummation on the day we stand before Him. We grow progressively deeper in love with our God and we really do come to surrender all to Him in love. We want to be His “slaves” because that is one of the ways we can love Him in return, by becoming truly His in every way. We surrender our lives to Him, not with reluctance, but with surpassing joy and suddenly slavery doesn’t seem like anything so much as union with our Beloved, our heart’s deepest desire.
The phrase “a slave to Christ” becomes not a curse, but an expression of the most wonderful thing we have ever experienced. We are now liberated to dwell in the pure light of His love in the deepest sense and in our “slavery” we have become profoundly free of all the things that kept us from that love.
And this is the truest freedom.