Who Owns You?

It’s one thing to trust Christ when things are relatively equal for us…it’s quite another to trust Him in the midst of inequality and oppression.

In the famous fictional book Uncle Tom's Cabin, the demonic plantation owner threatens to torture Tom if he doesn't beat a sick slave woman. When Tom refuses, Legree reminds Tom he owns him “body and soul.” 

Looking toward heaven Tom says,

“No! no! no! my soul ain’t yours...You haven’t bought it,--ye can’t buy it! It’s been bought and paid for, by one that is able to keep it.”(1)

Legree couldn’t beat the heaven out of Tom. In this one eternally important area, Tom had the “upper Hand.”

Tom represents real-life Christians who persevere in the midst of cruelty, persecution, and oppression because they know they've been purchased by the blood of Christ. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Timothy 1:12).

Please take a moment to pray for our brothers and sisters who are suffering for their faith.

And whatever difficulties you face today, remember Jesus is the ultimate master and keeper of your soul.
--------------------------
(1) Chapter 33, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852, (source)

Uncle Tom's Cabin was a fiction book that revealed the terrible mistreatment of slaves in America. Some have criticized the book because it offered stereotypical characterizations of black slaves, but it still had a profound affect on white Americans, helping them realize the sin of slavery. The book also contained some important Christian principles. I admire African American Christian slaves who trusted Christ in the midst of mistreatment. And I pray that Christians, black and white, will speak and act against bigotry in the Name of Him Who bought each of us at great price. Gail

"It is reported that upon being introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln fondly commented she was 'the little woman who wrote the book that started this great [Civil] war.'" (source)

For other 1-minute devotions about the faith of enslaved blacks and racial bigotry:
The Freedom of a Slave
The Freedom of Fogiveness
Flags or People 
300 Uses for the Peanut 
Clean Stables   
He Overcame Evil

Bible Love Notes