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For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.
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In today’s bible verse it was the apostle Paul who wrote that it was for freedom that Christ set us free {Gal.5:1} and yet is saying here that he has now become a slave to all. It is not a contradiction, it is a paradox. A paradox is a seeming contradiction that is actually a truth.

Every believer who has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior has been set free. Jesus Himself said to us that if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. {Jn.8:36} It is only because of that glorious freedom that we can choose to be bond-servants just as Paul did! The apostle Peter too would say that we who are free should now use that freedom to become bond-servants of God. {1Pt.2:16}

To be clear, we have to understand that our highest calling is to choose to serve the Lord. A bond-servant is one who has been set free (as we have) and yet chooses to say to the Master, I will not go away from You, because I love You and your household {Deut.15:16}, the people, not a building.

Our freedom purchased and provided as a free gift for us with the blood of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, comes with responsibility. First and foremost is love: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. {Mar.12:30-31}

And of course, as Jesus instructed in the Sermon on the Mount, that includes loving the people who persecute us, the unlovable and our enemies. That is what makes us sons of our Father in heaven. {Mat.5:44-45} As a matter of fact, it was that very love that caused Jesus to pray for us while He was suffering on the cross, saying ‘Father forgive them’. {Lk.23:34}

It is notable that Paul who the Lord used to bring us today’s verse was started on the path to salvation by the love of Stephen as he was being stoned to death. He lovingly prayed to the Father not to hold that sin against them, the haters, the persecutors, the killers—a group that included a young man named Saul. {Acts 7:58} Paul had both heard and seen the love of God in action. And that was a seed that would bear amazing fruit some time later on the road to Damascus {Acts 9:3-16}, the road to salvation!

Bond-servants choose to do the will of the Master! So long ago Joshua would say to the people of God, fear the Lord (YHWH) and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! (from Jos.24:14-15)

Jesus has said to you and I:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE