Title: Pierce Your Ears
“I bought you not to make you a slave to our house, but to set you free. Now you are no longer a sold slave, but a free man. It's not a lot, but take this money and go out, forget the past and start a new life with a free body and live well."
Hearing this, the girl knelt in front of him and wept.
"no. I can't do that. I was born as the daughter of a slave, and until now I have never been treated as a human being by being sold here and there as a slave, nor have I ever received any warm attention or care from anyone. But a few days ago, the owner appeared and bought me a price. And I was treated like a person for the first time, and I received the Master's love and grace. And you don't know how happy my heart is with gratitude. Where am I going to leave the master who bought me in that damn slave market and treated me like this and loved me? I want to live my life as a human being, repaying the love and grace you have given me while serving my master for the rest of my life. I think this is the way to live my life the most free, happiest and happy. Do not let me go, but let me stay at your house.”
So this girl lived with him all her life and served him, and after Lincoln became president, she went to the White House with him.
As I read this story, I was reminded of the words in Deuteronomy and Exodus that I read today. According to the Hebrew Slavery Law, after six years of serving as a slave for whatever reason, the slaves were to be set free in the seventh year. And so that the servants could start a new life without difficulty, they were not sent away empty-handed, but were given enough grain and sheep to let them go. This law reminds us of God's grace that freed them from slavery in Egypt, and also shows God's interest and love for the poor.
But we see a touching scene. Now, the servant who was released from his slavery and was given the opportunity to spread his shoulders and live as a free man gave up on being free because of his intense love for his master who had loved him so far, and voluntarily decided to become the master's eternal servant. It looks like a bell making a oath by drilling a hole
There is a young man who has been sold for debt. He was sold into slavery because of a debt that his family or his own strength could not repay. However, the young slave man was fortunate enough to find a merciful master. This master loved and cared for this little servant without ignoring or mistreating him. When the time came, I got married and had children. Although he was sold as a servant through debt, he owed his master's kind and compassionate heart and a large debt of loving love and lived happily serving his master in his house. Six years have passed like this, and now the time has come for the master to set this slave free according to the slavery regulations of the Hebrew law.
This young servant looks back over the past six years. Before meeting this owner, he remembers a time when he lived a desperate and heavy life, being sold from house to house. However, after meeting this owner, he sees that the curse, resentment, and complaint towards the world and himself have disappeared. This is because he lived with the grace of his master who took care of him with love, embraced him with mercy, and made him live as a human being. Think about how much encouragement and comfort you have received. I remember the grace that allowed me to welcome my beloved wife and the love that gladly accepted my children to be born. I realize that I owe this owner an unpaid debt of love over the past six years. So this servant decides that he cannot or will not leave this master. and tell the owner
“I will not leave my master. No I can't leave. I, who received the master's great love, sincerely love the master. It is a greater joy and blessing for me to live with the owner and live in this house than to live apart from the master. Where can I live apart from my master, enjoying this gratitude, this love, this thrill, this joy? I love you dearly, so I will not leave you, this house.”
1. Voluntary and voluntary service.
Serving by force or with a purpose is a heavy burden and pain, and serving with the purpose of wanting to be blessed is an investment. You cannot force a slave to be held or ejaculate to stay. ‘If your servant loves you and your house and desires to dwell with you’ is the only condition and is the qualification to serve the master forever. “It is the grace of God that I am what I am.” “What do you have that you have not received? I have received it', my life, my life, my family, my talents, my material, my opportunities, my achievements… Especially the grace of salvation, freedom through redemption… . Realizing that everything has been received by grace from God, I am no longer the master of my life, and I have transferred the sovereignty of my life from myself to God, from the life in which I became the master to the life in which God became the master. Commitment is the voluntary and voluntary decision to live the life of a servant rather than a master.
How is this decision possible? What motivated you to make this decision?
2. Love is the motive
Because he loved Rachel, Jacob was able to work as a servant for 7 years as one day and then for the next 7 years as another day. He gave up the throne of glory in heaven, and came to this earth in a low, lowly body, wearing a crown of thorns of pain and shame instead of the crown of glory, carrying a heavy cross on his back instead of a splendid banner, receiving spitting and rods instead of worship and exaltation, receiving a drop of water, Jesus Christ, who gave us the way of salvation by shedding every drop of blood and dying, did not do this because he is the Son of God. Nor to receive the glorious title of Savior. It was not to become the Last Judgment King, nor to taste the glory of the resurrection.
Because He had compassion on us and loved us who were lost in the way of destruction due to lies and uncleanness, greed and pride, foolishness and evil, He voluntarily suffered this shame and injustice in order to save us from being destroyed in our sins and to save us humans from death. isn't it?
Love has no other choice but to answer with love. There is no other way to respond to God's love except our love. People mistake love for money and zeal for it. We often mistakenly believe that we are dedicated to doing God's work diligently. Or they mistakenly believe that they should devote themselves to working hard for the church. A wife is devoted to loving her husband, not to working for her husband. If you love yourself first, you will conform to his will, and you will devote everything to work for him.
“If you love me you will keep my commandments”, “Simon, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” The same is true of the question the Lord asked when he visited Peter, who had denied the Lord three times.
Not extensive knowledge or worldly intelligence. It is not the ability or the qualities to do great things. The most important quality of servants of God and workers in the kingdom of heaven is passionate love for God. Christian faith does not mean only religious life according to religious knowledge or doctrine. It is a love movement of gratitude that accepts the truths learned and realized intellectually, loves passionately and is moved by heart, and puts the teachings into practice in life.
We know that justice without love leads to condemnation and pride, truth without love leads to self-righteousness, and peace without love is a false deception. Love doesn't just mean emotional feelings. Love is the driving force of sacrifice that can give everything, the secret of obedience that can fully conform to the will of the other person, the fundamental power of self-denial that can give up on oneself, and the basic power of change to become more like the other.
Doesn't Christian mean Christ-like, that is, one who resembles Christ? Christlikeness, the ultimate goal of our lives, can therefore only come from the love of Christ.
3. You need to put your ear on the doorpost and drill a hole.
Here is a column stained red with blood. The pillar of the cross was dyed red with the blood of Jesus shed for me. Knowing his love through this cross, we cannot leave this cross, and the Lord tells us to take up this cross and follow Him.
That's right. In gratitude for the love and grace shown through this blood-stained pillar cross, he said, “Because the Lord loved me so much, I love you with all my heart. I want to live forever serving the Lord alone. Punch a hole in my ear, the sign of an eternal servant.” To make a promise like this is to pierce your ears
This hole, the sign of the eternal servant who loves the Lord, may seem like a sign of a foolish and foolish failure by worldly standards, but on that glorious day, on the day we meet the face of the beloved Lord, the wounded hole in our ear is filled with heaven's He will decorate your ears with your precious treasures by making them dazzling and beautiful. He will transform you into a shining decoration instead of an ugly scar.
Ah!
I want to feel a hotter and greater love for God
I want to have a greater passion for God
The ability to overcome the sins and evils of this age,
The strength to overcome my own greed and pride
I knew that it came only through passionate love for God.
Ah! I want to love God more passionately.
'God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son'. During the dedication service on the first Sunday of Advent, waiting for the coming of the baby Jesus, whom God sent to mankind as a gift of love, with a fervent confession of love for Christ and determination, Let's pierce our ears. Let's see if the hole we had already drilled a long time ago became smaller and blocked, and the traces were not blurred, or if there was an earring that loved the world more and loved me more in the ear hole I drilled with the determination to become an eternal servant.
Let us make a fervent confession to the Lamb of God, the baby Jesus, who will come to this earth to love us and give us his own life. “Lord, we want to love you more intensely.”