Everyone serves someone. The only question is which master you choose to subjugate yourself to. God’s people have the opportunity to have Christ as their Lord. He is the one who laid His life down for His friends. He washed His disciples’ dirty feet. He promised to never leave them or forsake them. He offers to give each one an abundant life. He is prepared to accomplish in our lives exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever imagine. No wonder the Apostles described themselves as “bondervants” of Christ!
Don’t fool yourself. If you are not actively submitting yourself to Christ’s rule in your life, then you are indentured to someone or some thing else. You may be in bondage to fear, or pride, or insecurity, or doubt. Perhaps love of money has enticed you to forsake those things in life that truly matter. Perhaps you are addicted to something. But no person is truly free.
At times God allows us to choose our master. You would think that when we compared our enslavement to the things of this world with the loving lordship of Christ, we would eagerly run back to Christ. But, as the English poet John Milton wrote, some believe it is “better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.” What appears to be freedom is merely the sinister bondage of darkness, concealed. People delude themselves in thinking that because they have chosen their particular form of bondage, they are free. But when they begin to compare the servitude imposed on them by their own master with that of the reward of serving the Lord of the universe, the contrast is profound.