Normally, I have an aversion to being bound, tied or harnessed. It is restricting, suffocating, contrary to independent movement. When I was a child, I would panic whenever I would be held down with arms and legs pinned to the ground. I remember a game of hide and seek that was particularly frightening. In an effort to find the best hiding place, I crawled inside a well pipe. The problem came when I heard the others calling that the game was over and I could come out. I couldn’t.
Why would anyone intentionally bind himself to someone or something that might possibly restrict their free movement? That is perhaps what keeps many people from a total commitment to Jesus Christ. They think, “Why would I want to bind myself to Jesus Christ and limit my freedom?” They view it as restricting, binding, limiting and confining. And, no doubt, it seems that way. To read the Bible and see Christians referred to as slaves of Christ, worse yet, bond slaves of Christ (willingly tied to Christ), it boggled the minds of many. I remember a lunch with a person who asked me, “Who and for what reason would anyone in their right mind give up their freedom to become a Christian?” Of course, I used an obvious and Socratic response, “Who in their right mind would surrender their freedom by getting married?” You must challenge the idea of freedom. Until one is connected with Christ, tied to him, can we really do anything good, go anywhere lasting or be anyone significant? Can we ever be free WITHOUT being connected to Christ? I don’t believe so.
Many of the early travelers on the high sees who wanted to be able to weather the storm and reach their destination have lashed themselves to the mast. That was their only hope from being thrown into the sea. I have seen people in Africa harness themselves to the back of a rickety truck to keep from being thrown from it as they drove on roads that, by most definitions, would not be considered passable. The reason again for tying was to get somewhere beyond where they could go themselves. By being tied, they found the freedom to go where they could not go on their own.
The Psalmist wrote, “You are my Lord, apart from you I have no good thing” (Psalm 16:2). Another place it says, “I, even I, am the Lord and apart from me there is no Savior” (Isaiah 43:11). Again, God says of himself, “I am the first and the last, apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). It must be understood that without connection to Christ, our freedom is little more than freedom to be small, move little, restrict our distance and limit our possibilities. It is irony that our greatest freedom is in our sacrificial death to Christ. It is only in lashing ourselves to him that we find it guaranteed that we won’t be thrown into the frigid sea. It is only in binding ourselves to Jesus Christ, that we are free to live out our purpose.
Yet, I find people, sometimes even Christians, trying to live freely without this kind of binding. If you want to find life really restricting then freely make all of your own decisions, freely using only your own mind to make them. Use only your own ability to arrive at your own destination. Use only your own dreams and ideas of eternity to arrive there. See how far that gets you. That, ironically, is truly a restricting life. You have limited yourself to yourself. And, you and I are just not that big, capable and limitless. That is living small, not living free. It is living a life without true discipline or discipleship, because we are sadly free from direction and instruction..
Theologian, pastor and author, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said, “When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person. . . . Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. . . . Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” If we desire to be true disciples, then we will desire to be inextricably tied to Christ. We will become his full-time servants.
I like the word “inextricable.” The dictionary definitions include “forming a tangle from which it is impossible to get free” and “incapable of being untangled or untied.” I like the idea of being so wound up in Christ, that I can’t go anywhere without him coming along. Better yet, I like the idea that wherever he would lead any of his people, he will lead me because, I am bound to him. And, wherever he wants me to go in life, I am certain that I am not going alone. I have found that he has taken me to great vistas and liberating places. He went to heaven. I guess that’s where I’m bound to end up.