The doors closed with a dull hollow thud. Behind it lay freedom, that treasured ability to do or be whatever one might desire. After an elevator ride up five floors, the doors opened to a stark white block cubicle with four stainless stools bolted to the floor, each facing its own 12” x 12” window. To the right of the small glass hung a lone black phone receiver for conversation. After what seemed like an eternity, a young woman with long, dark hair appeared dressed in a green and white county jail uniform. Only 20 years old, this young woman was now facing an unknown duration of imprisonment caused by a series of wrong choices and bad actions. She was in bondage because she believed a lie and tried her best to live it out with no regard for the laws of the land or the consequences of breaking them.
Bondage is the result of wrong choices and bad actions whether in the physical realm or in the spiritual realm. Spiritual bondage is the ultimate trade one makes whenever one believes the devil and his devious lies, while ignoring the gracious pleas of a loving Savior. Bondage knows neither age nor sex, and certainly is no respecter of persons. For the believer, spiritual bondage imprisons one in the choking chains of what might have been and in the surreal shackles of what will never be. Bondage is self-imposed hopelessness.
Spiritual bondage is usually a spiraling journey down instead of the mythical arrival at an unknown destination. It is like a potent slow-acting poison that paralyzes its victim inch by inch, until death seems more inviting than life. Bondage desensitizes the soul and the spirit’s desire for an intimate relationship with Christ and substitutes a devilishly designed regiment of endless spiritual calisthenics intended to erase every vestige of grace. Eventually, if freedom is not found, hopelessness settles like a dark cloud and the lack of real life is accepted as simply the way it is. Such is the existence of many who follow Christ.
They’ve bought the lie of the devil and exchanged their precious freedom for a wisp of the short-term vapor of convenience. They’ve sold their spiritual birthright for a bowl of pleasure and in return reaped a whirlwind of slavery. Their drug of choice has been spiritual laziness, and its promised plethora of pleasure has dematerialized into a smothering yoke of servitude welded to an endless chain of despair.
Oh captive one, would you not rather walk on the high places with the Lord Jesus than stumble around in the blackness with your shackles of hopelessness, despair, and death? Would you trade the unbearable chains wrapped around your body for His robe of righteousness? Would you be free again or do you like that dark cell’s comfort of the bondage you find yourself locked in? A life lived in spiritual bondage is boringly predictable but a life launched in freedom’s trajectory has endless possibilities.
Bondage is a choice you make. Christ died that you might have both eternal and abundant life. Both began at the moment you confessed your sin and asked Christ to save you. Both are yours to enjoy with Him for eternity. Both are irrevocable. Why then would you settle for anything less? Will you live out a lie and deny you spiritual birthright?
Call out in a voice of humility! Lift up a cry of repentance! Say to the Deliverer, “Oh, God forgive me and set me free again from the sins that have so easily entangled me!” Let the chains of your bondage drop to the floor, push open the cell door of the prison house, and walk out into the clear bright light of His presence. Lift up your head once more and live – live – live in the freedom of Christ!