Servitude to Christ seems to be a lost art. In fact, in the United States, you rarely find someone willing to give themselves over as a slave to Christ. We give service to sin; we give service to others; we even give service to ourselves; but we don't give service to Christ. My question is "why"? Why am I (are you, are we) unwilling to give ourselves in complete surrender to Christ? And lip service doesn't count!
I'd like to consider the life of a real slave - someone in bondage to sin. You can take any sin, but for the sake of painting a clear picture, I'm going to use a very visual sin: sexual bondage. Now, most of us don't always think of fornication or adultery as bondage, but in truth it is. Giving oneself to someone in this manner (at least as far as the Bible is concerned) is the same as connecting or chaining or gluing ourselves to them. We have formed a connection that cannot be severed without pain, loss, and torture. In fact, when the person does separate from the other, they are continually reminded of the experience(s), because it is ingrained into their memory.
Now, consider this same act with multiple partners and you can begin to see why people are drawn to sex. It's no longer about the pleasure of the act, but rather about continually trying to fill the void of separation that has been formed from the first moment. To find healing, one can only turn to God, our true Healer. But, as a statement of self-worth and value, we tell ourselves that we can fix it on our own, and thus perpetuate the cycle.
Whether you see it now or not, this has an extremely negative effect on our emotions, our well-being, and our spiritual condition, because we have allowed someone else (or multiple people) to control our thoughts, feelings, and circumstances. When Paul tells us to take every thought into captivity, it's not for the sake of legalism, but rather for the purpose of pulling us out of the mire into which we continually sink on our own. This is the negative form of servitude.
But please allow me to consider the opposite - the positive form of servitude. If we were to take all of the energy and life that we pour into negative services and were to pour them into our service for God, all of the negative emotions, thoughts, and experiences would now be changed into positive ones. Servitude, or slavery, to God is no longer seen in the context of giving up our lives, but rather under the view that we are greatly impacted for the better because of knowing Him. Our weakness becomes our strength in Him. The more that we attach ourselves to God, the more that it hurts to tear ourselves away. The more that we glue ourselves to Him, the more we feel the hole of His absence. Through our bondage (consider the bonding process in this analogy) to Him, we have thus enable Him to be the one that controls our thoughts, feelings, and circumstances.
If I were to logically conclude that one view is better over the other, I can't deny the fact that allowing the Supreme Being in the universe to control my actions is an amazingly good thing. I can allow bondage to sin or I can allow bondage to God. When looking at this from a purely rational view, I have to judge that the only way to better my life is through service to God. Therefore, if I am to follow the footsteps of David into willful servitude of God, I have to stop thinking like Bryan. Interesting concept, ya?
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