The Enslaved Mind

Yesterday, I explained the slave money mentality and revealed that a person who exhibits this mindset is one who is content with living a life that holds others responsible for her existence and avoids accepting responsibility for her own life. In truth, accepting slavery when freedom is our inheritance is nothing more than accepting a lie. Think about it. We each were born with an innate desire and responsibility to live and move as free people…people who are disciplined and determined to pursue God’s purposes and plans for our lives. So, why choose to be bound to people, places, and things that really don’t have the power to run our lives or the authority to govern godly ambitions? You see, an enslaved mind is a twisted mind – it is a mind that longs for something it already possesses. Please allow me to explain this by using an example from the Bible.

In Genesis, chapter 3, a serpent who had allowed Satan to use him to speak to Eve approached her on the premise that he knew something she didn’t. He basically asked her about God’s mandate for eating fruit from the trees in the Garden of Eden. Eve responded by explaining that she was allowed to eat from all of the trees except the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She emphasized that she wasn’t even allowed to touch it or else she would die. Now, carefully read Satan’s response to that statement. “You won’t die! God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil” (Genesis 3:4&5, NLT). What happened there? Eve was tempted to pursue the forbidden because she thought it would offer her that which had been impossible for her. Yet, from the beginning of Genesis up until that point, God had revealed the truth that man had been made in His image and in His likeness. In other words, Eve had been like God from the moment He had given her life. The very thing that Satan tempted her with in the Garden of Eden was something that was already in her possession. Notice Satan wasn’t really concerned about her acquiring the knowledge of good and evil; Satan was thinking long-term. His objective was to prevent humanity from walking in the fullness of God’s divine will for them. You see, if God had placed fruit trees in the garden, obviously He had planned for Adam and Eve to eat of its fruit at an undisclosed time and for a very specific reason.

The same is true of the slave mentality. The enslaved mind is chasing something it already possesses and is running from something that it cannot get away from. What creates such a stronghold in the mind of someone who has a slave mentality is the reality that what you and I can perceive as slavery, they perceive to be true freedom. They believe that by releasing responsibility for their lives to others, they can avoid all of the headache and heartache associated with trying to meet their current needs and mapping out goals for their future. By falling back onto others they think they can avoid having to stand up on their own. By trusting in their responsible friends and family, they think they can ignore their secret fears and insecurities. They are free people who are completely capable of excelling in life but whose minds are entangled by a bondage of slavery that keeps them saturated in mediocrity.

As I close, I must say that there is a positive spin to the slave mentality when it focuses on the right Ruler. True freedom occurs when a decision has been made to volunteer ourselves to become spiritual slaves who release ownership of our lives and responsibility for our lives to our Creator so that it might be hidden in Christ, and guided by the power of His Holy Spirit. That, my friend, is the only time and the only way that slavery serves a real and effective purpose. The New Testament apostle Paul said this about Jesus:  “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated Him to the place of highest honor and gave Him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11, NLT).

Only when our minds become enslaved to the mind of God, is the beauty of bondage graciously waved on the flag of freedom!