My Master Is...

"We would say in the terms of Romans 6, "Serve the right master.  Link up with Righteousness."  You see, before the Savior was present in our lives, we had no choice.  We were all trapped under the ice.  Breathing free wasn't an option.  There was no way we could find freedom, no way to enjoy the ocean depth of righteousness.  We were enslaved to wrong, lawlessness, selfishness, wicked choices, and impure motives.  When Christ came, He freed us, leaving us with a choice.  We can choose Him to be our Master, or we can go back and choose sin to master us."- Charles Swindoll, The Grace Awakening

     Romans 6 has been a hard chapter for me to swallow.  You see, in my journey to release control, God has shown me that I am a chronic worrier.  I've tried for years to not be a worrier.  In high school, I shared my concern with my youth group, and one of my sweet friends shared with me Philippians 4:6-7.  In college, the worry became such a problem, I read through a devotional called From Worry to Worship.  In both cases, it seems that the worry would die down and be replaced by God's peace about things.  However, in the past few years, instead of trying to approach my worry from a Godly perspective, I've tried to control things over and over again.  I felt that if I was in control, I wouldn't have a thing to worry about.

     While I was reading The Grace Awakening, Swindoll devotes an entire chapter to deconstructing  Romans 6 for the grace filled believer.  The last two sentences of the quote I shared have hit my heart in many ways.  You see, I have lived my life believing the lie that because I've been a worrier all my life, I will continue to be a worrier all my life.  It is my nature.  But as Swindoll states, I actually have a choice.  Do I choose to let worry, which is a sin, master me?  Or do I choose Christ to be my master?  Right now it it seems impossible that I could be free from the master of worry.  But as I wrote about on Monday, our God is the God of impossibility.  The more I chose to focus on Him and let His power transform me, the more I am freed from my old master.  It won't happen overnight, although I wish it would.  But just like I have learned to have a heart full of eucharisteo, I can have a heart free from worry.  I can have a heart mastered by JESUS!