I don’t know anyone who calls themselves a ‘Christian’…who believes or suggests that God has taken a ‘laid back approach to sin’, or that it’s no big deal for ‘Christians’ to sin… because God is cool with it knowing…that ‘sinners are gonna sin’. You know, this idea that there’s enough ‘grace and mercy to go around’ since Jesus ‘paid the price for all’ when He shed His blood on the cross on our behalf.

But it has been my observation over the years, that many sincere folks in the ‘church world’ spend more time and effort excusing, dismissing, or downplaying the seriousness of their ongoing tendency to sin…than they do overcoming it once and for all. And I’ve come to understand the reason why this is: it has to do with having a ‘slave mentality’.

What does it mean to have a ‘slave mentality’? That’s simple: It means a person who is a slave is going to think like a slave, as they live like a slave…because they are a slave, having been told most of their lives that they are a ‘slave’. Now they can dream and sing about a ‘better day to come’ in the ‘great bye and bye’…but for now, they know what their lot in life is, regardless if it’s fair or not, and regardless of how they came to become a ‘slave’. And if we can tap in to our prior knowledge of a American history, when slavery was ‘legal’, we know that many if not most slaves could only dream about freedom. If a plantation slave ever attempted to pursue freedom by running away, let alone were found talking about it amongst themselves…they were sorely punished.

Which leads me to another illustration that I have used here over the past five years, and it only drives my point home even further and deeper- the back story on what ‘Juneteenth Day’ is all about. In 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that all persons held as slaves in the rebellious Confederate states were free. Unfortunately, the slaves in many parts of Texas never ‘got that memo’, and continued to be held, and forced to work as slaves for another two years, that is until then President Grant sent federal troops to Galveston, TX to free them in 1865.

Can you imagine what that had to be like for those 250,000+ slaves when they learned that their freedom and been declared and settled…two years earlier? Of all the conversations this topic can generate, the one that intrigues me most is pondering the plausibility that the people who would be the first target of their anger would be the federal troops who came to free them. Do you think those slaves were mad at the ones who came to tell them they had been set free, or would they have been angry with those who kept them bound illegally for two more years after the fact?

So now imagine how absurd it would be…if/when a person who has been a ‘faithful church member’ for years, if not decades…is told that they can be free of all their sins and actually ‘go and sin no more’…and they got offended. Would receiving news like this anger you and cause you to lash out at whoever informed you of this remarkable news? And while we’re talking about ‘absurdity’…you do realize that Jesus came to declare freedom for all those who were ‘slaves to sin’, and the ones who were viewed as the most ‘religious’…were the ones who spearheaded His death sentence on the cross. Yeah…go figure!

My personal ‘Juneteenth Day’ came in the latter part of 2020, when I was up early one morning reading in John’s gospel; and I came across that passage in chapter 8 where Jesus declared ‘most assuredly’…that whoever commits sin is a slave of sin (34). It was a pivotal morning for sure, for me, as I continued reading: “and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (35-36)

I so clearly remember hearing this question permeate my ‘spiritual ears and heart’: “What do you think I came to set you free from?” Can I just tell you that since that time, I have walked and enjoyed more freedom…than I ever thought was possible? And do you know why? From that time forward, I no longer ‘thought like a slave’, because Jesus promised that we would ‘know the truth…and the truth could set us free’ (John 8:32).

The more I began to study and meditate upon this, and then began to ‘walk in it’, the more I came to realize…this ‘truth’ is the truth that scripture talks about, when we are told that God wants ‘all men to be saved…and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:4). This is the same truth that Paul mentions how people in the latter days, who continued to live in the flesh while ‘walking in a form of godliness’ (2 Tim. 3:1-5)…would be ‘always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth’ (7).

In fact, if you read the closing verses in the preceding chapter there, Paul was informing Timothy to continue teaching with humility and patience to those who opposed him… hoping that God would perhaps grant them repentance so they may ‘know the truth’…and ‘come to their senses…and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” (2 Tim. 2:24-26). I don’t know about you, but the idea of a person being ‘taken captive to do the will of someone else’…sounds like ‘slavery’ to me.

Now…if you would please…turn to your Bible, and you might want to have a highlighter handy for this passage…but read through Hebrews 10:26-31, being sure to mark vs. 26 nice and clear, that part about having ‘after they've received the knowledge of the truth’.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine the challenges that those thousands upon thousands of freed slaves faced, from a logistical and practical point of view. Sure…they learned the news of their newfound ‘freedom’…but then what? Where were they supposed to go and what were they supposed to do? Many in fact…ended up continuing to ‘live as slaves’…given they had no other viable options. I mean…think about it…they owned nothing. Where does one go to start a new life and to live as a ‘freed slave’?

But for the person who comes to know Jesus and the freedom He purchased with His own blood…being freed from sin opens up a whole new world of living…as we begin to pursue and seek first…His kingdom. And that even comes with a promise to take care of ‘earthly provisions’ (Matt. 6:31-33).

One last thought for today, on this topic of ‘slavery’. If you had been a slave on some southern plantation back in the 1800’s…and you were permitted to marry another slave, or at least ‘bred’ with them, producing a child…that child became the property of the slave owner. A child…born into slavery, for no fault of their own; imagine that. Why, this might even lead to more understanding as to what ‘generational curses’ are all about, and how it came to be where the ‘sins of the forefathers are passed down to the 3rd and 4th generation’. And I hope nobody recoiled when reading that line, because it’s found right there in the 2nd Commandment, which is part of the 10 Commandments that many believers wanted posted in public schools across the country.

Join me tomorrow?