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"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free," - Luke 4:18 NIV
Occasionally, prisoners with a life sentence are given an opportunity to fight for their country in exchange for their freedom -- to an extent. This opportunity presents them with a choice: to serve their sentence or serve their country.
The truth is, there is no real life for a prisoner with a life sentence. They are bound to whatever their circumstances allow them to do, which consist of extremely limited options in an extremely confined space. If they choose to accept the opportunity, they are given another chance at life, so to speak. They are given freedom — freedom to serve their country.
So they have two options: Either they remain imprisoned for the consequences of their own actions, or they break free and choose to serve someone else.
Once this decision is made, they’re no longer known as a prisoner but as a servant. Servants have certain privileges that prisoners don’t. They are not bound to the same room, in the same place, with the same schedule and restrictions. A servant has much more freedom to move around and make decisions. However, their life still belongs to the cause they signed up for.
This is similar to the offer that Jesus is making us. Jesus has broken into the prison of the earthly realm, removed the shackles of our sin, and has given us an opportunity to serve Him. Having done all that, He doesn't tolerate us making excuses or putting anything over Him. He takes our bondage and gives us His freedom, on the condition that we must lay our lives down completely to His will. We must lay down our friends, our family -- nothing matters but our duty to serve. We no longer get to do whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it, because Jesus gave up His life in exchange for ours. He saved us from an eternity in hell, so He expects our utter devotion and obedience in return.
In Ephesians 6:5-9 in the English Standard Version, Paul explains that God is our Master and calls us bondservants of Christ, describing the behavior that this title entails.
As uncomfortable and difficult as the decision may seem on the surface, if we really stop to consider our lives without Him, we'll realize that much like inmates serving a life sentence, we didn't have much of a life anyway. We were slaves to our sin, dictated by our flesh. We found ourselves doing things we didn't want to do for the sake of our provision or because it was more of an addiction than a desire. In Romans 7, Paul breaks down this concept in His life. Most things that we thought we wanted to do have left us feeling unsatisfied because we were seeking to fill a void that can only be filled by a relationship with God.
If we think back to the inmates, they don't try to break out of the prison because choosing to fight in a war is actually easier. They choose to leave because they would rather die serving something greater than themselves. Similarly, if we try to break out of the prison of our sin without Jesus, we'll never make it. We'll die trying. If we choose to lay our life down for Him, we become a part of something much, much greater than ourselves.
"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." - Romans 6:22
So I guess my question is, would you rather die a free man or die in chains?