A BONDSERVANT BY CHOICE

"And…the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free" (Exodus 21:5). To this servant there is no dilemma, no choice. His decision was never in doubt. His master was his whole world and he was bound to him with an eternal bond of love. He could not possibly leave his master or his house.

This servant’s life revolved around his love for his lord, and, like Paul, he considered all else as “dung,” that he might win the master. He was the kind who would be willing to be accursed if others could come to know the love of his lord.

This servant valued intimacy with his master above any earthly blessing. Who cared for flocks, for corn, or for wine and oil, when you could have endless communion and fellowship with the master? His heart overflowed with affection for him and he made it very plain: "I love my master and I will not go free."

What this servant is saying to us is simply this: Christ is enough! Nothing in this world is worth losing the sense of his presence. All the wealth and prosperity of the entire earth is not to be compared to a single day spent with him. The pleasures at his right hand far exceed any ecstasy known to man. To know him, to be where he is, seated together in heavenly places, is more than life itself. To serve him, to be led by him, to come and go as he alone commands is life on the highest plane.

Would you remind me that you are a son, and not a servant? Then I would kindly remind you that Jesus was a Son who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7). He could have come as a powerful Prince of the Almighty, trampling every foe, yet Christ chose to come as a bondservant, fully committed to his Father's interests.

This dedicated bondservant we read about in Exodus believed he had one mission in life, and that was to serve his master. He was not in it for an inheritance, even though it is written, "A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren" (Proverbs 17:2). Love made it easy to obey and from morning to night, every waking hour, he lived in willing servitude to his master. He was driven only by love—no guilt, no sense of obligation. No wonder Jesus could say, "If you love me, you will obey me."

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THE BONDSERVANT

God's ways seem like paradoxes to the human mind. He says, “To live, you must die. To find your life, you must lose it. To become strong, you must first become weak.”

One of the greatest paradoxes of all is this: To be truly free, you must become bound. To gain the greatest liberty in God, one must give up all rights and become a lifelong bondservant to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a glorious love-slavery that leads to the highest form of freedom and liberty. It is a voluntary surrender born out of love and affection, causing one to consider servitude even greater than sonship.

In a time when God's people are obsessed with claiming their rights, taken with the Lord's blessings and benefits, it would profit us all to allow the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to a place in God beyond anything we've yet discovered. It is in perfect divine order to receive all the good things from the hand of God, and no child of the Lord should feel guilty about the blessings and benefits poured upon him.

Yet we need to see there is something better than blessings and prosperity, something far more rewarding than all the other manifold benefits he daily gives us.

A bondservant is one who has entered a sacrament of service with his master. It is beautifully described in the following Scripture:

"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
"And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever" (Exodus 21:2-6).

This is much more than a picture of God's concern for slaves and servants. In type and shadow, it clearly portrays the bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ is the Master in this account, and we are the servants whose freedom has been purchased. The cross is God's Sabbath, the year of release for all prisoners, captives, slaves, and servants, and we who were sold under the Law have been set free by grace!

We are freed from sin, yet bondservants to Christ, all our days, by choice.

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