Christianity makes you master of yourself. You are no longer taken in by manipulative people who want to control you. You stop being gullible.
The gospel tells us that each one of us can truly become masters. This is what we can become when we understand that we exercise our mastery entirely in service. We become masters by serving people around us, our family and neighbours, and a widening circle of people. And our service to them is to help them become masters of themselves, so that they able to look after themselves, and after one another, and so to make them independent of us. The only way to do this, is to undergo this service. You do not give up when you realise how long, difficult and painful it is, but you to press on towards self-mastery. You understand that your only way to self-mastery is through the opposition you receive. By trying to stop you, your opponents are helping you. You insist that you will be their servant, and do so, not by doing what they tell you, but by doing what is right and telling them the truth. This is the way to become masters of ourselves and so acquire self-mastery. You become a master and a lord by becoming a servant. You become a servant of the truth. By being a servant of Christ, you become a servant of all men, a conduit of Christ’s limitless service to all men, by which he is the only true Lord.
Our opponents want us to give up the hope of self-mastery. They want us to become children, and to want to stay children. They punish and ostracise anyone who shows any signs of adulthood, or who expresses any dissatisfaction with their dependence, or expresses any hopes of becoming independent. Your only, but constant and never-ending crime, is to step out of line. This is the reason why they are determined to punish you, now and forever. Your insubordination, your reluctance to give them the worship and obedience they demand, is why they are so ready to oppose everything you do and say until they have destroyed you and obliterated your memory. Fear of freedom and hatred of freedom is the very powerful motive force that drives those who are determined not to concede anything to God.
