On the journey of walking with God, there are (2) roads to take. The first seems to be the familiar, the road of duty, the one religion sell, and most believers seem to buy. The road most travelled, the works principle. Yes, on this road you are taught that Jesus died for your sins and that you owe your life to Him. But, the surrender of your life to Him does not come from a place of gratitude but one of servitude.

The servant principle has most believers working for Christ, winning souls for His Kingdom, majoring in ministry and giving God our time.  It has most of us sitting in Church from Sunday to Sunday and the frequency of attending a church building becomes the measurement to determine how close we are to God.  Service and attendance replaces relationship and intimacy with God and as we get locked into this routine we are deceived into thinking that by doing all these things we are in God’s perfect plan for our life.

The servant life also breeds hidden heart conditions, namely self-righteousness, pride, and skepticism for others. This principle in motion in our lives causes us to believe that we are great because we are “doing stuff for God”. We have surrendered all our time witnessing to others, being in church, planning events and doing ministry. It also causes the eye of the servant believer to look at others who are not working as much as we are with disdain or disapproval. And even if it does not manifest itself in this way, the servant life prides itself on being worthier of God than another because of all we are doing for Him.

        This path for the believer is one the enemy loves

Why? Because even he knows that the path of works takes us out of the arms of grace. The path of works is the enemy’s distraction for all believers because it shifts the focus of the believer to his actions and not his heart condition. Instead of ensuring we have clean hands and a pure heart we seek a roster of responsibilities. The servant life of works is also life draining because it sucks the believer away from their source of life (God the Father) and grace and soon we become like Paul said in Galatians, we begun in the spirit and are now seeking perfection through the works of the flesh. The life of deception is not so easy to spot these days because it is laced with some aspects of truth. It’s like when you line up a series of objects, for a showcase asking others to determine the original from the copy. There is usually no object in the lineup that is completely far off from the original. They all look the same to the onlooking eye. But to the one who knows the original, a closer look will reveal the defects of the counterfeit and in the end, the original will be uncovered.

That is how the age of deception is, all believers for the onlookers look the same, for the most part, our gospel sounds the same, Jesus died on the cross for our sins and to save the world. But a closer look at the lives of every believer will uncover the truth, there are servants and there are sons.  Some of our lives are laced with half-truth and we are living the carbon copy life of what God intended for us. We find ourselves working hard for the Kingdom of God out of flesh and not from the spirit. The book of Galatians paints it so vividly for us, every act of the flesh takes us away from His grace and His Plans for us.

So, there is that life of a servant of God that is graceless, this life is birth from religion and not of the Kingdom of God.  It is the life of a servant versus the life of a son. When Adam was in the garden with God he was not a servant, he was a son, born of God, ruling with his Father, tending the garden, all his needs were met, he had dominion. When he sinned, and was separated from God, he began to experience a different life, one of trying to survive without God. He had to find his own way, he had to provide food for himself, he experienced shame, and having the eternal guilt for always regretting what was. He had to work and toil because what he had in the garden was now gone. He began to see himself differently, he saw himself as a servant as an orphan and not a son. Even though God’s mind didn’t change about him, his mind changed about himself. He was like the son in the parable Jesus told of the prodigal son.

When Christ came and paid the ultimate price for sin, we were delivered from the servant life of Adam. Jesus’s work on the cross gave us right standing with God not as servants but as sons just like Adam was before he sinned. Christ’s work in us was meant to restore us to the Heavenly Father. Through this life, we are restored back to the life Adam lived in Eden before sin, our needs are provided for, we are completely cared for by God because He is our Father and we are His sons. We did nothing to earn this life. It was His divine plan all along. The gift of sonship through the life of Christ the beloved son.

What shall we say then to these things? Shall we continue living as slaves, servants and orphans? Absolutely not! We need to go to God in honesty and in truth and ask Him to deliver us from religion and to bring us into His Kingdom, to deliver us from being servants, slaves or orphans (The curse of Adam) into the life of a SON (the life of Christ).

 Are you a servant or a son?