A few days ago I was reliving my past for a brief moment. I had been suffering from “trust issues” and now that I was in a relationship, they were starting to show up. I’d have constant battles with trust which were spearheaded by fears collected from my past and fears of the future. Thankful to God, He lead me down memory lane pointing out things I hadn’t remembered for years, feelings I hadn’t felt for centuries and pain that I hadn’t properly addressed.
But this brought freedom.
This forced me to address my wrong perspectives of love and this has started me on a journey to find out, through the life of Jesus Christ daily, what love really looks like, to give love and to recognize it in the lives of others and my own.
The truth is that when you do not have a revelation of God, you are involved in what I call, “Modern Day Slavery.” It is far more prominent than we think, and less obvious because you live right in the centre of it. Again, the fish doesn’t know it is in water until it is taken out.
So who is this modern day slave master? He is called “Sin”.
Sin is a very cruel slave master, whose other names could be ‘Rebellion or Disobedience (against God).What looks like ‘love’ is really abuse and every person in this world has suffered at his hands. Only by the revelation of God, do we realize that he seeks to kill you. He will work you to death. He will. And he has no mercy.
As I said before, I unknowingly associated love with abuse but I knew abuse was a form of slavery. And once you’re enslaved, it is harder to get out, regardless of how much you desire to. And even when you do escape, you are left damaged or near to death. When you don’t escape, you either die in it or remain there until you are rescued.
Not understanding that we are all born into sin was the first challenge. As persons, we all desire, love, trust, care and pleasure. It is the nature of this world and all the people in it. God says that none are righteous, no, not one. Through this, seeking to wholly entrust yourself to those who the bible describes as having hearts that are ‘desperately wicked and deceitful’, myself included, is dangerous.
Instead of entrusting our hearts, bodies, minds, souls to the One who looks to bring us life, we have trusted in the one who brings us death. Instead of trusting love, we have trusted lust. Instead of trusting the One who came to serve, we have trusted in our selfishness.
In a world where each persons highest aim is to please themselves or worship one who seeks to please themselves – if that one has wicked desires and is not good, you are hopeless. And that is sin’s best friend, hopelessness.
Sin makes you think entering into his service will be pleasurable. He lures you with physical pleasure, riches, fame, acceptance and counterfeit love which is covetousness. He’ll even encourage you that satisfying yourself at another’s expense, your own health or safety is ‘not so bad’. He encourages you to go father and consume more for yourself. Before you know it the shackles are harder to get off once you’ve got them on. He encourages you to pursue counterfeit pleasures that lead to death rather than to life. He starts with making things look nice which then lead you into bondage.
And he lives inside of everyone of us.
And this was my fear.
I always assumed that love, even though deemed to be good, would lead to devastation in the form of the abuse of power and slavery. On recognizing this, I acknowledged that this was also a method employed by sin. If we think about Adam and Eve, our forefathers, in Genesis 3, satan, the father of lies, made disobedience or rebellion against God, sin, look good, they took bait and were enslaved.
A world with sinful people running around has taught me that love will lead to abuse and hurt, and many times, I will be one who is included in hurting someone or abusing my power. I have suffered under the rule of sin, and others have suffered from the sins I’ve committed against them.
Nevertheless, in the re-living of my past, Jesus showed me how much He suffered at the hands of sin, by those who sinned against Him, but also that He became sin and was crushed by His Father for those who would believe on Him. He even cried out for those who mocked Him at the foot of the cross. He didn’t say, “Father punish them,” He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
He understood my position as the victim and the perpetrator.
He understood my pain and endured even more, and forgave.
He forgave for past, present and future.
He brought me to life and freed me from the rule of sin.
He committed to cleanse me from all the desires for sin’s rule, the shame and the damage from sin’s rule.
He committed to giving me new desires, for Him.
And He committed to giving me a renewed perspective of love, Himself.
In that moment, in the midst of my pain, a joy crept in, and keeps creeping in until this moment, to know that I have been rescued from a cruel slave master. One I thought loved me, when he hated me and was determined to kill me. One who actually killed me. But facing the reality that I desired what he could give me, which was death.
This man Jesus, the redeemer of my soul, gave of Himself, didn’t take, and gave me life, not death. And everyday of my life, He restrains me from running back to the one who had deceived me for so long.
I desire life. I desire life in abundance. If Jesus is life then I desire Him.
And if I desire Him, then I desire true and perfect love.
And if true love and perfect lead to freedom,
I am free.
littlerevelations 