Slavery
I was in prison yesterday.
Okay, so I was AT a prison yesterday, not actually IN prison. But I still had a foreboding sense of lost freedom even though I never went beyond the front desk.
I’ve been in prisons a couple of times to visit men and women who had been incarcerated for one reason or another. No one trusts anyone around those places. You almost feel like a felon yourself just for visiting.
I remember the last time I went to see someone in prison. I never actually made it there, because I called ahead of time and found out something had gone wrong with the inmates that day and they had locked the place down to visitors. They said they had to take care of the “situation” whatever it was. I remember stopping at a Best Buy and walking around for a little bit in the big, open store, thinking about the man I was trying to see. Here I was enjoying complete freedom, going where I wanted to go, seeing what I wanted to see, and no one was stopping me. He, on the other hand, could do almost nothing without another person first allowing it.
Freedom is so wonderful. I’m sure I take it for granted every day.
Freedom!
Paul wrote about slavery and freedom in Romans 6:20-22: “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness…But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” Living in sin is living in slavery. This world is in chains. Another directs their steps and tells them where to go…and it’s not God. We have all been there. We all fight against this slavery.
Paul was well qualified to write about this subject, having been in prison quite a few times himself for the gospel’s sake. I LOVE how the book of Acts ends. Paul was waiting trial in Rome, because he had appealed to Caesar. He was confined to his house, but he was blessed to be comfortable.
“And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered” (Acts 28:30-31).
Even as Paul was “in chains,” so to speak, the gospel was on the loose! Even as he was bound, the gospel was “unhindered.” What a great word – unhindered. God’s word should be (and always will be) unhindered. It is free. In it we find the power of true freedom. It matters not what man does to us here in this life. We may be bound with chains, thrown in a dungeon, kept under lock and key, but our relationship with God determines our true level of freedom.
Freedom! Drink it up.
And we are done with Acts.
God bless,
Nathan
