Bond Servant, Son or Both

1Co 7:20 Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called.

1Co 7:21 Wast thou called being a bondservant? Care not for it: nay, even if thou canst become free, use it rather.

1Co 7:22 For he that was called in the Lord being a bondservant, is the Lord's freedman: likewise he that was called being free, is Christ's bondservant.

1Co 7:23 Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men.

1Co 7:24 Brethren, let each man, wherein he was called, therein abide with God.

Gal 4:4 but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

Gal 4:5 that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Gal 4:6 And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Gal 4:7 So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. (ASV)

I have, for some time now, signed my letters and my email with the note, Bond Servant and I teach that we, Christians have been purchased with the price of Christ's blood on the cross and have often been astonished at the attitude of a large number of folks in the Christian community. I am often informed that people will accept that they are the child of God but never His slave! In response to these folks I give them the above scriptures and the note that if they will just study the Epistles of Paul that they will notice that he, like myself and many others, was proud to be purchased and bound to Christ.

Jesus taught us that His yoke was easy.

Mat 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

When my mother married my dad after my father had denied me I accepted the unearned love and committed myself to him, just as if he were my birth parent. As my dad there were certain things, that at the age of ten, I was expected to do. I took out the trash, set the can on the curb on trash day and a few other small items for which I received 25 cents every week that I performed my duties. I was paid for my service in the performance of these tasks.

And then here were things like cleaning his car, for which I was not responsible and did not receive a wage. My dad was in the Air Force and was a Veteran of the Seventh Cavalry in the Pacific Campaign of WW II. I felt honored to be able to prepare his car so that when he drove through the gate at the base, he was sharp and clean, just like a good soldier should look. I was his adopted son, he had no other, and it was more than a duty to be able to serve him... I served because when no man loved me, he did.

In like manor, I returned from my service in Vietnam was so disliked that my best friends, the men that I had grown up with, the same men that threw me a send off party, were slow to just go with me to have a beer with me at my expense. Tormented, for twenty years I did my best to prove myself just as evil as my peers, singing, drinking and fornicating in the Juke Joints of SE Texas. I had been spoken to by God in November of “66 and for all of this time, 23 years, I fought with the Holy Spirit. Being a Fool's Folly, I finally yielded and submitted to His call on my life, I became a son of God but I also became His bond servant, just as I had with my dad.

I'm not about to tell anyone that he or she is or isn't saved but I do call everyone to ask themselves this question after reading their Bible, “If I am to good to serve my Father, am I really His?”