bits from bob....
bits from bob....
To have a master and be mastered are not the same. To be mastered is to be overcome, to be conquered. To have a master is to know intimate relationship between teacher and student. We have lost this meaning in our world. We do not experience lords and masters in daily life. To have a master is security and belonging and problems solved.
When one has a master, obedience is not coerced. Our master does not make us do what he wants. Unbelievable! It would be easier if God would master me, make me do the thing he wishes, avoid the conflict, the competing desires which tear at me. Most moderns would prefer a coercive lord that demands obedience.
Is Jesus your master? This is vocabulary unfamiliar and uncomfortable to modern America. We like the blessed words--Jesus as Savior, Healer, Friend. We have little idea of obedience in a relationship of equals, and hardly grasp that Jesus the Son learned obedience through his suffering. If our idea of Christianity is that we are being mastered, we are far away from the relationship he desires. If our idea of missions is that we are only obeying what we must do, the challenge is virtually insurmountable. He seeks a relationship in which he is master and we are student with little conscious knowledge of the distinction. A good master is always a teacher. We eagerly learn, we obey, we become like him. Where he sends we go unquestioningly. Because he is our master.
