DOWNTON ABBEY is an English estate: 5,000 acres run by a village of tenant farmers, 40 servants who run the home, and a “nobly born” family of five who live like kings. It’s an insightful story of a class system that was once nearly universal. Then Tom, the chauffeur, marries the family’s youngest daughter. Suddenly a servant has become an heir. It is scandalous! The family is shocked to think an Irishman with grease under his nails is moving upstairs, wearing tweed, and must be treated as family. But the servants are even more shocked, angry they must bow before this man who was once their equal.
We who are not Jewish were born slaves to the law, condemned. We were born outsiders, Gentiles. We were not “children of the promise.” We were not heirs. We were slaves to our addictions.
“We were enslaved. But God sent His Son, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons…. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir” Galatians 4:3-7.
You were an outsider and a slave, BUT GOD ADOPTED YOU!
Unfortunately, some adopted children struggle to leave the past behind; they keep going back to the old ways. We do too. We are heirs of God, “fellow heirs with Christ,” yet we slip back into lives of slavery. We enslave ourselves to addictions, to bad habits, to things that hurt us. We choose slavery and squander our inheritance.
“In the past, when you didn’t know God, you were enslaved to things that are not gods. But now… how can you turn back again? Do you want to be enslaved all over again?” Galatians 4:8-11.
“It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, therefore—DO NOT SUBMIT again to the yoke of slavery” Galatians 5:1.
You have choices. See yourself as a child of God and heir to His kingdom—turn your back on the addictions: “do NOT submit again to the yoke of slavery.”
ΑΩ
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