Is something enslaving you?
Is something controlling you?
I'm thinking about this because I read an entry from Oswald Chambers book My Utmost for His Highest that gave me pause (the link I put on Chambers' name links you to a site that gives you the daily devotion -- if you've never read this devotional check it out).
"you are the one's slaves whom you obey" Romans 6:16
This is what Chambers says:
"The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself.
"When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you."
How do you know if you are enslaved to something?
Here's one indication -- you think about it constantly.
Another indication -- you worry about it or try to figure out how to "fix" it in your life.
Yet another indication -- it influences the choices you make in life big time.
And one more -- it colors everything you view in life.
The great thing about these indications is that if you are yielded to Jesus Christ wholly this will make life so much better. He is the one "thing" we can yield to that will make us completely ourselves and free.
Yielding to anything other than Jesus brings bondage and entrapment.