Unlimited: Called to Belong to Jesus
Mar 25, 2022 1072
And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ (Romans 1:6).
The calling which we have all received is the calling to belong to Jesus Christ. The idea behind the language of “belonging” goes back to how he introduces himself in verse 1, as a “slave of Christ Jesus.”
If you think about it, the idea of a person actually belonging to someone else is very foreign and shocking to us. However, in ancient Rome, where the recipients of this letter lived, one in every three people were owned by someone else. Across the whole of the Roman empire, the proportion of slaves may have been around one in every five people. So the idea of belonging to someone else in a literal was a very common notion back then.
The calling which we have all received is the calling to belong to Jesus Christ.
We, who have given our lives to Jesus Christ, because he has given his life to us, actually belong to him in the most real sense. We have been bought by the blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:18–19) and he has redeemed us to set us free:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1.)
This isn’t the slavery of bondage; it is the slavery that brings freedom. Don’t be fooled by the deceptions of the world. The only true freedom lies in serving Jesus from a heart of gratitude and joy.
Spiritual Application
What is your experience of being a Christian? Do you feel the joy of freedom or the oppression of slavery? How truly have you understood the Gospel?
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