How Masters Are Made

Bottom Line: Masters are made through yielding to temptations and the more we yield the stronger they become. There is but one way to be freed of this and that is to restore God’s position as the Master over our lives in all areas of it. And freedom from sin does not have to be limited to the individual but can expand throughout the nation as it returns to the position of submission to God.

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Here is something that will most likely not surprise you. I like the daily devotional “My Utmost For His Highest” by Oswald Chambers. Not that I read it as often as I should but when I open up my browser it’s one of the pages I preprogrammed it to load to in hopes that I am prompted to read it. And this is the case for today’s blogcast. It was the 14th of March when I read his thoughts about the masters we have in our lives and where they come from. According to Chambers, it is the simple act of yielding to something or someone which makes us a slave to it.

And that is very true. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to break a habit? I point to myself and I say that stories, regardless of format and method of delivery, are one of my masters in life. I am subscribed to many story sites online and have found myself often refreshing my email app in hopes that I will find the message saying that a new chapter has been posted. I also work on stories in my head when I am doing a mundane task at work that is easily seen as boring. But what am I trying to say to you all today with these examples?

It’s that this is the story of the whole Bible. Right now this post is going live on non-other than Passover Thursday and this weekend is Ressurection Sunday. All throughout the Bible the terms master and servant, which can also be translated to mean slave, are used to describe us.  From the spiritual perspective, humans are only truly free in one aspect. Our ability to choose who we serve with our lives and the eternity we will receive at the end of this time on earth however short that time may be. 

I said short because that is what our lives are. Our lives on this earth are but a vapor, a morning mist that soon disappears. God understands this and that is why He sent his son to die as the one who takes out place. To come in the likeness of sinful flesh that through Him all flesh might be condemned and put to death. As Paul says in Romans 6:8 through 10 we are to die with Christ putting our flesh to death so that we might come alive in the spirit that He gives.

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”

(Romans 6:8-10 NIV)

And this brings us to the point of what and who has mastery over us. When we yield to temptation it has mastery over us. I didn’t say sin but rather temptation for Paul explains that sin brings forth many temptations but that we have the choice between yielding and excepting the way out that God has provided. See 1st Corinthians 10:13 for the full verse about temptation and God’s faithfulness to us. (Now, as I type this part of me is certain I have done a post about this topic on my old blog before I started Isaiah 1:18 Ministries but I can’t remember what I named that one, and I don’t exactly have the time to go and look through my many articles to find it and post a link it.) 

When we yield to the temptation it establishes a preexisting precedent in our behaviors. It is part of the reason why they would fast food in the old days to show God that food wasn’t their master but that God was. The Roman Catholic church despite its flaws has created a few good customs one of which being Lent which is a fast until we celebrate Passover and by extension the resurrection of our Lord. As time has gone on we have come to an understanding that fasting is more of a spiritually focused action rather than a physical one. 

John Bevere in one of the courses from his MessengerX platform said something along the following lines; a fast without a spiritual focus is just a diet. Drawing closer to Christ has to be the sole purpose of fasting. Just to be clear I am not talking about “intermittent fasting” which is done for a different reason. Supposedly there are some health benefits to it but I don’t know all the details about that and this is not today’s subject. I just wanted to make sure I was not misunderstood. When we fast in church or as Christians our main goal is to be drawn closer to God and not to be seen by others as more spiritual than them.

Oswald Chambers when addressing this subject quotes John 8:36 which states “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” as a way to remind us that discovering we have a master is not the end of the road for us. Christ will make us free when we come to Him willing to let Jesus become our new master.

While we are made free from sin we are not left high and dry. God has given us his spirit and his charis. Charis is the Greek word translated as grace in the new testament and it means unmerited favor that results in us having unmerited strength to continue onwards with power in obedience to God’s guidance through Holy Spirit who is the most underacknowledged member of the Trinity. We are not alone and not without power we just have simply forgotten that we are offered it. It’s like forgetting to grab your sword as you leave the armory. Not only that but it’s as if we ignore the armory officer saying to us and others “Hey wait up! You forgot your sword! After him, he forgot his sword!” 

Dr. Joseph Boot from the Ezra Institute said in an episode of John Cooper’s podcast that the “Downside of boiling things down is that we miss a lot of the in-depth elements of a subject.” 

In that interview, they brought up the fact that this is what has happened to a lot of the church as we have focussed on getting people to understand the Bible to make a decision to follow Christ we have forgotten to dig deep into it together. Some churches are part of the course correction and have made that their primary focus with their small groups which is good. But if we are to be a church that regains the influence we once had at the times of the Great Awakenings then we need to know the deeper elements of theology. Not just know it but understand it to the fullest possible extent for us so that when we teach we do not lose the intricacies as we communicate it to those outside of the church. 

Many things changed the nation when people with dedication to their one master, Jesus, worked to teach people the deeper things of salvation. But one example that I think will shock some folks is this. There were towns where the brothels shut down due to a lack of demand. For a modern comparison, that would be as if millions of people quit going after internet pornography all at once and didn’t go back to it at all or if the redlight district of your average major city shut down because people realized that these things were ungodly and unholy. That is a small example of what can happen when people take to heart the words of scripture and make God their master. Choosing to yield to Him instead of their own self and fleshly desires. 

One quick follow-up about sex before I move on. Some might misunderstand and think I am saying sex is a bad thing. It is not a bad thing. But when it is not within the marriage of a man and woman it becomes sinful. Redlight districts exist because our society has rejected God’s plan for sex. Namely bringing forth children and drawing husbands and wives closer together. It causes dehumanization, human trafficking, depression, murder through abortion of the child conceived in wedlock and sometimes even the woman who has suffered extreme physical abuse, suicide as the women feel like they have no value that is intrinsic to them being a human, substance abuse, and other things that I don’t know of for we rejected God’s position as the of Master over this part of our society. Child abuse and trauma through exposure to sexual material at a too-early age which has a correlation to lead to homosexuality as a coping mechanism with the trauma are additional ways in which damage continues in society from giving the position of master over to sin. 

But I repeat the words of Isaiah today. 

“The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has chosen me to bring good news to poor people. He has sent me to heal those with a sad heart. He has sent me to tell those who are being held and those in prison that they can go free.”

(Isaiah 61:1 NIV)

I speak also the words of Elihu as he spoke to Job concerning the sufferings he had undergone and the purpose behind them. How people shall respond to their deliverance by God when their hearts are turned to righteousness after it is revealed to them the life they once lived.

“And they will go to others and say, ‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right, but I did not get what I deserved. God has delivered me from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light of life.” 

(Job 33:27-28 NIV)

The sins which hold our nation captive will not remain in charge should we choose to exercise them and replace them with the Spirit of the Living God. For if we do not give dominion over to God we will fulfill the words of Christ when he spoke about demons saying they have a tendency to return.

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 6:43-45 NIV)

It is never enough to turn away from something for we are left aimless. But to turn towards something else we are given a direction and a purpose to work towards. We must not conform to political correctness. Nor affirm sinful lifestyles and lie saying that they are not in disobedience to God. Or yield in any way to the pressure from the prince of darkness who rules over this earth. The devil is the prince but he has lost authority for it belongs to Christ the king of heaven. Satan only rules because of the people who have yielded either to sin or the pressure to not stand against him. If any of us have yielded we must return to the Father and receive deliverance through the Son and resume our life of obedience to Jesus.

I leave you today with the words of Paul until the next time, Courage and Godspeed!

Romans 6:16 “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”