The picture above has been in the news this week, as this heart-breaking image of two slave children just recently surfaced. In God’s providence, I have been reading a very good book this week, Surprised by Grace, and the book closes with an illustration of our freedom in Christ that brought this picture to mind.

There’s a story told, from Civil War days before America’s slaves were freed, about a northerner who went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, the man turned to the girl and told her, “You’re free.”

With amazement she responded, “You mean, I’m free to do whatever I want?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And to say whatever I want to say?”

“Yes, anything.”

“And to be whatever I want to be?”

“Yep.”

“And even go wherever I want to go?”

“Yes,” he answered with a smile. “You’re free to go wherever you’d like.”

She looked at him intently and replied, “Then I will go with you.”

Jesus has come to the slave market. He came to us there because we would not go to Him. He came and purchased us with His blood so we would no longer be a slave to sin but a slave to Christ, which is the essence of freedom.

But now, 6 years later, though I am a radically new man on the outside, my inside (heart sins) often don’t feel much different than my previous life. Instead of drunkenness, it’s wantonness in things more accepted by the Christian culture; instead of hedonism in things clearly forbidden by scripture, it’s hedonism in trivial pursuits and other accepted pleasures; instead of sexual immorality, it’s inward lust; instead of lying, it’s deceitfulness; instead of stealing, it’s covetousness. And the list goes on. Oh, how easy it is to stop all outward, gross manifestations of sin and then neglect the heart!

Thus, I found the following quote helpful in reminding us Christians for our need of humiliation over seemingly ’small’ sins in our lives.

Note, also, his mention of the sin of misspending time. As little as two years ago I wouldn’t have even thought this to be a great sin. But by God’s grace, oh, how I see it to be one of the biggest heart-sins in my life. The selfishness of the heart knows no bounds! In our pleasure-addicted, entertainment-driven society, who doesn’t struggle with the terrible sin of wasting our precious, God-given time? I think this testifies to the wickedness of our hearts more than anything else…for so many sins find their expression in wasting time (selfishness, covetousness, lack of self-control, unfaithfulness, self-righteousness, etc.).

“There may be many godly people who, through God’s mercy, are able to keep from gross sins. They do not find it any great matter to keep from bad company, swearing, drinking, uncleanness, lying, wronging others, or such kinds of sins as these are. They do not see such need for humiliation in this regard, unless it is for the fact that their natures are as corrupt as any, though they do not break forth into those actual gross sins. But the main work of the humiliation of those who are godly is to be humbled for their thoughts, for misspending time, and for not sanctifying God’s name in holy duties.” – Jeremiah Burroughs

“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear…” – Col 3:4″

Life here is, by a metonymy, put for the author of life.

We have shewed that Jesus Christ, He is first the author of a believer’s spiritual life… “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Secondly, Jesus Christ, he is the matter of a believer’s spritual life…”I am the bread of life.”

Thirdly, Jesus Christ is the exerciser and actor of the spiritual life of believers… “Without me, ye can do nothing.”

Fourthly, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the strengthener and the cherisher of a believers’s life… “In the day when I cried, thou didst answer me, and strengthen me with strength in my soul.”

Lastly, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the completer, he is the finisher of the spiritual life of a saint… “the author and finisher of our faith.”

…If the Lord Jesus Christ be a believer’s life, then this serves to bespeak all believers highly to price the Lord Jesus. Oh, it is this Christ that is thy life; it is not they husband, it is not thy child, it is not this or that thing; neither is it this ordinance or that that is a believer’s life. No; it is the Lord Jesus Christ that is the author, that is the matter, that is the excerciser, that is the strengthener, that is the completer, of a believer’s life.

You prize great ones; the Lord Jesus Christ is great -He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. You prize others for their wisdom and knowledge: the Lord Jesus hath in Himself all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col 2:3. You prize others for their beauty: the Lord Jesus Christ is the beautifullest of ten thousand, Cant. 5:10. You prize others for their usefulness: the Lord Jesus Christ is the right hand of a believer, without which he can do nothing.

The believer may say of Christ as the philosopher said of the heavens…’Take away the heavens, and I shall be nobody’; so take away Jesus Christ, and a believer is nobody -nobody to perform any action, nobody to bear any affliction, nobody to conquer corruption, nobody to withstand temptation, nobody to improve mercies, nor nobody to joy in others’ grace. Oh, prize Jesus Christ!”

Thomas Brooks, Christ is the Life of Believers, Works, Volume 6, P319