He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

Revelation 21:7, NKJV

I like the book, "The Richest Man in Babylon". It tells the story of a man who has made so many wicked choices that he is eventually sold into slavery in a faraway country. He lives a life of deprivation and misery and settles into a resigned acceptance that all he will be for the rest of his life is a slave. Then comes the day when he realizes that he could be so much more. He was, after all, born free, and he still is confident that he has the soul of a free man despite the chains he wears. So he bides his time until finally comes the day when he spies his opportunity and makes good his escape. Stealing two camels from his master, he then sets out across the wide desert towards Babylon.

At first the journey is a wild race, for he knows all too well the fate that awaits the slave who steals from his master and runs away. However, the deeper he goes into the desert, the more he realizes that pursuit from an angry master is the least of his problems, for he has run out of food and water! But he stumbles forward for several more days, alternately riding and leading his miserable camels who are also without food and water. Finally, on the last morning, he no longer has the will to even rise. His throat parched with thirst and his body ravaged from hunger, he decides that it would be best to just remain lying down on the ground to die - a fitting fate for a man who sinned his way into slavery and then tried to escape.

But then something happened! "Do I have the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?" he asked himself. For if he had the soul of a slave, then he should just lie upon that hot sand and die. However, if he had the soul of a free man, he would get up from his wallowing in self-pity and continue on. What mattered hunger? What mattered thirst? For a person with the soul of a free man, these were but incidents on the road to Babylon!

And, of course, herein lies the choice that every man and woman who suffers the consequences of past mistakes must make. Will we simply give up and dumbly accept the fate of the sinner, or will we rise from our sin and leave it as far behind as humanly possible? Will we accept the defeat brought on by our own error, or will we repent, leave the lifetime of sin and enslavement to the devil, and start living for God? We must be cautioned that it is much easier to just "lie there" and await our eventual doom - this is in fact is the choice that the majority of people will make, for they have the soul of a slave. And make no mistake, they are nothing more than slaves. Slaves to sin, and slaves to the devil!

But, for those with the soul of a free man - or more accurately, those who desire to free themselves from the clutches of Satan and turn their lives over to the one true Master - these are the people who will realize that the difficulties of life are but incidents on the road to heaven. These are the people who will accept the consequences for their own sin, changing what they can and adapting to what they cannot, and then move on to serving the Lord as best they can for the rest of their lives. These are the ones who will refuse to give up, regardless of the obstacles before them, and press on towards the goal to win the prize that God has in store for the faithful.

Have you made mistakes in the past that are now costing you dearly? Welcome to the club, for we all have erred greatly in the past and sin very often has terrible consequences that must be faced. The question is, what will you do now? Will you get up and boldly face the challenges that lay ahead, both those brought on by yourself and those that are perhaps even a bit unfair and undeserved, or will you simply lay there and wallow in your own remorse? These are fair questions and ones that each man and each woman must ask themselves.

We must be forewarned that Satan, our former master, will not give us up without a fight. But we can take great encouragement from the fact that the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in this world (I John 4:4) and that we will win if we will begin to live for Him. We of course will have great difficulties ahead, but we will survive, and we will win if we can only remember that these are but incidents on the road to heaven!

Do you... have the heart of a free man? If so, it is time to get up and get busy with your new life for God and Christ!