Truth — Week 2 – Monday
TODAY’S VERSE
John 8:35-36
The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (ESV)
When my son, Dean, was born last year, I remember how cute and tiny the hospital monitor anklet was. But before I worked at Southland, those monitors represented a different kind of stress. I worked in IT at the hospital, and part of my job was to maintain the server that monitored all the babies.
My employment at times felt contingent on office politics or restructuring, but nothing spiked my blood pressure quite like rebooting that server in the middle of the night. It required “All Staff” emails to seemingly thousands of people and a prayer that the aging hardware would actually come back up. The best part was that if it didn’t come back up within a designated timespan, we couldn’t even do anything about it; it just triggered a cascade of physical lockdowns for elevators, hallways, and the entire building. It definitely didn’t feel “cute and tiny” back then!
There’s a unique pressure we all face at some point, when it feels like our future is attached to our performance, our productivity, and maybe even how well we can pretend. You do it all as best as you can because your security depends on it.
In John 8, Jesus points out that despite having a better option, the religious leaders were living in the proverbial household conditionally… holding the temporary status of a slave. Jesus explains that the real offer on the table is sonship. Someone with a permanent seat, not working to earn a place to stay in the house, but living from a place of inheritance because he belongs there.
We all wish we could view eternity through the lens of inheritance, but we often crawl back towards slavery and performance. For me, it comes from knowing myself too well and thinking, “If I sprinkle a little ‘good’ on top, I’ll feel better about the whole thing.” But when the Son sets you free, He permanently moves us from a performance-based relationship to a position-based one. Which means we can stop virtue-signaling our best “worthiness,” and rest in the fact that HE is worthy.
APPLICATION
Are you living as a slave to sin and performance, constantly checking your status and trying to move the dial a little closer to “worthy”? Today, in the face of fear and insecurity, try to operate from a position of an heir. What would your stress look like? How would your relationships change?
PRAYER
Jesus, thank you for the gift of sonship. I’m tired of living like a slave to performance. Help me to believe and live like I am Your child, and my place in Your house is forever secure because of YOU.
