by Jacob Ninan
The main thing Jesus came to do for us was to save us from the slavery of sin (Rom.6:6). Salvation is not just about forgiveness of our sins, but to free us from the bondage to sin. God wants to give us grace so that we don't have to feel compelled any more to yield to sin.
But there is another aspect to salvation that many people do not think of much. That is freedom from being slaves to people (1Cor.7:23). God has paid the price of the blood of His Son to get us freedom even from living as slaves under people. Of course, we are not talking about the old-time slavery, but living in such a way that we are afraid of people, what they talk about us, etc. We are slaves to people if we are always trying to impress them, trying to gain a reputation in front of people. Think of how people lose sleep worrying about what people think about them! Think of spending large amounts of money, even taking loans, to impress others with lavish weddings, our house, car, etc.! God wants us to live before Him and be free from people.
After we have repented from our sins, put our trust in Jesus as our Saviour and received forgiveness for our past sins, there are certain decisions we have to take concerning the direction our life is going to take. It would be huge mistake to imagine that we are already 'saved' and that everything will go automatically better. There is a narrow way we have to walk for the rest of our life where we have to cultivate faithfulness to God.
One major decision we need to take is that we don't want to sin any more, in our thoughts, intentions, words or behaviour. This is a direction we need to set for our life. There will be failures along the way because we have a sinful flesh that we are carrying with us. But it is only when we have set this direction for our life that we will learn how to get up after we have failed and continue in the direction of perfection.
Another decision we have to take is that we are going to live entirely for God, to be faithful before His eyes, and not to seek for money, pleasure, honour, or to live to impress people. That is what it means to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength (Matt.22:37). If this is not clear in our heart and mind, we will always get tossed between God and other things, including pleasing people. Then we are going to be strongly tempted to compromise in our relationship with God and with what He wants us to do in order to be pleasing to people.
The apostle Paul said that if he was to trying to be pleasing to people, he could not be a servant of God (Gal.1:10). We remember Jesus saying that it is impossible to serve God and money at the same time (Matt.6:24). Just as in that case, it is an either or situation between serving God and pleasing people. If we are not clear in our mind about it, we are opening ourselves to many different times when we will be strongly tempted to compromise. We may not realise that in all such situations we will be choosing between God and people.
Why do we make a mistake in this area? Perhaps it is because people are right in front of our eyes and we can see their reactions to what we do, whereas God does not seem to be there with us. Perhaps we imagine that God will 'understand' what we are doing and why we are doing it and forgive us afterwards! Let us not forget that God cannot be fooled and that He can see through even our thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Many times, we have a tendency to give special importance to people's ranks and positions, their degrees, and their name before people, and give more attention to what they say, even when that is contrary to what God has said in His word. We can see how a film star who gets converted gets to preach and give his/her opinion on different things almost immediately. Paul warns us not to consider what people are 'according to the flesh' (2Cor.5:16).
It is a greater struggle for us when we are tempted to compromise something for the sake of our family members. After God told Abraham to leave his family and home town and to go to the place He was going to show him, he took his nephew Lot with him. We see the different problems Abraham had with Lot afterwards. Even our family members are not to be give more importance in our life compared to God. Jesus Himself demonstrated the distinction He made between His earthly family and the family of God (Matt.12:48-50). It was not that He did not care for His mother, brothers or sisters. After His foster father Joseph died, He worked as a carpenter to take care of His family, and even when He was hanging on the cross, He made provision for His mother. But it was very clear to Him that the kingdom of God was even more important.
Another area where we can become slaves to people is when it comes to spiritual leadership. If we follow a leader to the extent that we blindly obey everything he tells us, we would be giving up our individual responsibility before God and making ourselves unthinking yes-men. We are expected to submit to our leaders only within their domain of responsibility over us, and if they overstep that boundary and try to control other parts of our life, we do not have to obey them. There are many cases where leaders tell their followers whom to marry, which job to take, where to stay, etc.
Many such leaders say, "Touch not the Lord's anointed," when any one questions them. This is misquotation from 1Chr.16:20-22 where it is very clear that God was referring in general to the people of Israel and not specifically to their leaders. Intimidations about the calamities that will follow if someone leaves a church are rather common. But we should stand firm in our personal relationship with God, and even when we should obey our leaders and listen to their advice when it comes to their domain that includes us, we should be free when it comes to taking decisions concerning our personal lives. An unquestioning submission to authority may be needed in the military services, but that is not the way authority works in family and church relationships. Once I was asked by a leader whether I was willing to give unquestioning submission to the leadership. I had to tell him I could give that kind of submission only to God because all human leaders were imperfect (like the rest of us) and it would foolish to do everything they told us.
We are to obey leaders who take their spiritual responsibility over us seriously, as those who have to render an account concerning us to God (Heb.13:17). We are to doubly honour leaders who work hard for our spiritual welfare and for bringing the word of God to us (1Tim.5:17). At the same time, if we see leaders who are seeking to exploit us for money, name or power, we should flee from such.
In the church in Antioch, while they were praying, the Holy Spirit directed Barnabas and Saul to be assigned to the missionary work to which He had called them (Acts.13:1,2). When we remember that under the new covenant, all of us are expected to have a personal knowledge of God and not need other people to tell us about God's will for us (Heb.8:11), we can see that in this case the Holy Spirit was only confirming what He had already told Barnabas and Saul. Once I had to counsel a pastor who was very confused with his senior leadership. They had asked him to uproot his family and move to a certain place in order to start a ministry. Later, after he had developed that ministry he was asked to hand it over to someone else and move on. While this can happen in a secular setup which operates on different lines, when it comes to church leadership there should not be any lording it over others (1Pet.5:2,3).
Some people are so scared of what some so-called prophets tell them that they will obey them even when it is obvious that what they are being asked to do is foolish. They think they should not end up disobeying God. How many people have got married to the wrong person in this way and how many have left their jobs! God wants us to respect true prophets, but when we listen to prophecies, we are supposed to examine them for ourselves before we obey (1Thess.5:20-22).
Many people are worried so much about what others think about them that they cannot even sleep well! When such a fear controls our life we will end up compromising the commands and values of God in order to please people (Prov.29:25). If we worry about what will happen if we were to displease some man, what about the eternal loss we will suffer if we go against the will of God?
At the same time, there are some people who say they do not care about what people say, and then go and do whatever they like! That is defiance. We must not forget that many times God uses people to speak to us when we are not listening to Him. Also, people sometimes tell us the truth about ourselves which we need to listen to if we are to be free from every form of sin in our life (1Pet.2:16).
We will find that when we try to be free from people, we will not be able to manage if we have not allowed God to fill our lives. If we want to live the best kind of life, we have to know God personally, learn His ways and submit to Him fully. We must know that He is perfect in all His ways, full of wisdom and love, and His plans are only for our welfare. When we trust Him, we will never be disappointed (Rom.10:11). Take a stand with God, and be free from people and the world.