Who Will We Serve?

October 12

In Romans 6:22 Paul poses a transition that may not at first appear to be a transaction worth entering. Here he says, “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. Is he really talking about exchanging one form of slavery for another?

Yes, he is. Paul is clearly pointing up the fact that everyone will serve someone. A man who chooses to serve sin will be its slave. A man who chooses to serve God will be His slave. There is no other convenient definition for the term. A slave is one who serves another.

Like the people who were in bondage before the Civil War in America, we are servants. Unlike them, however, we have the option of deciding who we will serve. Because we were born into sin, our master is the evil one, but Jesus paid the price to buy us back, to redeem us from this cruel task master. Will we accept the exchange?

Sometimes we become so comfortable in our servitude that we are reluctant to leave our master. Prior to the Civil War, people who had been in bondage for generations feared having a new master. Those of us who have accepted the Lord’s payment for our purchase no longer fear, for we know that in servitude to Him, we are free.