Obedience is My Middle Name

The Apostle Paul is arguably one of the most influential authors of all time. His books in the Bible are often referred as sources of wisdom and truth. In short, Christianity has a lot riding on this man. It's important then to remember that Paul's writings, along with the rest of the Bible, are God-breathed. This simply means that we take the Bible as the literal words of God, as if God had penned it Himself.

Now Paul wrote about many aspects of Christian life, but a quite notable aspect of our relationshp with Christ is what Paul referred to as slavery. That's right. Paul described himself as a "slave of Christ." He and other new testament authors described their relationship with God as that of a servant, a slave. Look at Romans 1:1, 1 Corinthians 9:19, Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1, James 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1 and Jude 1:1. In fact, Paul more than once referred to all true Christians as slaves (see 1 Corinthians 7:22, Ephesians 6:6 and Romans 6:18-22).

A slave does not have permission. True slaves live without permission to do anything. What to wear, what to eat or even bathe are simple rights and choices that true slaves lack. As Christians, we are slaves. Did you know that when you became a Christian? As voluntary slaves, we surrender our free choice or free will. We surrender our right to choose. The only problem is that our flesh doesn't want to cooperate. So we struggle. The truth we need to be struggling towards is the fact that we, as Christ's slaves, don't really have permission to do anything. All of our decisions must be brought before Him.