“They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants, and have
never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, “You shall be made free”?’”
My
question is why are the people using this as proof to their lack of bondage? I
read Exodus (when they were escaping from slavery in Egypt), I read Judges
(where there was a cycle of apostasy, bondage, repentance, and deliverance
SEVERAL TIMES), and I read Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel – which all
mention the 70 years that the Israelites spent in captivity under Babylon. Why
would the people say, “Hey, you know we’re Jews, we’ve never been enslaved!”
These
people – to put it simply – are blind to their own debt. Just like so many
people today, they can’t feel the shackles on their ankles. They can’t see the ball
and chain they drag. They believe themselves to be free.
From a
spiritual standpoint, the entire situation actually looks a little ridiculous.
People are holding their heavy weights, dragging a leg behind them, connected
by the ankles, in rags and coated in a thin layer of their own blood with
dilated eyes and disheveled hair. They then stand up straight and say, “I’m not
in bondage! I’m a man!”
To be a
man (or woman) is to be enslaved – enslaved to sin, at least at some point. We were
all enslaved at one point by the hold that this world and sin had on us. We had
to be shaken and woken up, shown the giant shackles on our feet. Our eyes opened,
staring wide-eyed at the chains and we turned to the one who also held the key;
the Savior of the World who freed us from the entanglement of sin. (Hebrews
12:1-2)
Today I
will take that key to a chain I’ve left on me, to one I hoped I could walk with
– the sin I believed was okay, and I will remove it. I’ll fling it from me, and
leave it behind from here on out, and talk to the person who can keep me
accountable to this.
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