Enslaved

…Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:19-23 (NIV)

After her whole family was slaughtered in her war torn country, she spent seven years of her life being devalued and abused by her uncle, her only surviving relative. A day finally came when she gained the courage to runaway from him, despite his constant threats of killing her, if she did. Therefore, she ran and never looked back. She spent many nights cold, alone, hungry, fearful and fatigued, and found places of refuge in abandoned buildings, and bomb-gutted cars, until she met a man who promised her a legitimate way out of the life she was living. She accepted his offer because, it was the first time over the past seven years in which she felt valued, so she cherished this moment in her heart. Yet, little did she know, this man was a predator and she was the prey. This man soon sold her into human sex trafficking, where the abuse, violence and manipulation was far worse than what she experienced by her uncle. Every day she lived in fear and every moment she had alone she prayed for an opportunity to escape her enslavement. She was empty and miserable until the day her prayer was finally answered. The day she escaped was the most precious gift she had ever received, because the man whom she thought was there to pay for her services was actually an undercover agent who had been tipped by someone who suspected illegal activity going on in the building of her captivity. She was finally free at the age of seventeen.

Human trafficking is modern day slavery, and studies show it is bigger than slave trades that happened hundreds of years ago. Yet, there is another type of slavery, which has been going on much longer than trafficking and the slave trades centuries ago. This slavery has had people bound for thousands of years; it is the slavery of sin- the true modern day slavery. To live in sin is to live our lives separated from God. Because of sin, human trafficking and every evil desire conjured up exist. Yet, there is One who can free us from the slavery of sin and His name is Jesus and to gain this freedom we must accept Him as our Lord and Savior and not continue to habitually be enslaved (live in) sin. The Lord desires all people to be saved even the leaders/supporters of the most heinous crimes, but not all will choose Him because they are bound by demonic forces that tell them wrong is right and right is wrong. Nevertheless, there will come a day, when human trafficking and everything vile and corrupt thing will be wiped from the face of the earth. This day is when the Lord Jesus returns and on this day He will be coming like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2), in the clouds (Luke 21:27) and with justice He will judge and make war (Revelation 19:11); He will be coming for His people and all who are against Him will perish. So if we are to be a slave to anything, let us be slaves to righteousness, which leads to eternal life instead of slaves to sin, which leads to death.

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