In the dim early morning of March 29, 1849, a sympathetic storekeeper in Richmond, Virginia nailed the lid on a crate containing a slave. A two-hundred-pound man had folded himself into a wooden box just three feet, one inch long, two feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. Cramped in suffocating darkness, the slave endured—often upside down—a grueling three-hundred-and-fifty-mile shipment via railroad freight car, steamboat, and wagon. Twenty-seven hours later in a Philadelphia abolitionist’s office, Henry “Box” Brown emerged from his coffinlike confinement to begin life as a free man. The news of his stunning appearance encouraged the hopes of freedom in countless slaves.
Everyone is born a slave of sin. Jesus Christ said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to” sin” (John 8:34). We cannot free ourselves from this oppressive master, for no one can live without sinning against God. But the sinless Jesus—not for His own sake, but for others—came from Heaven to deliver His people. Jesus allowed godless men to nail Him to a Roman cross, and three days later rose from the dead so that “we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). And all those who trust in His work (and not their own) as the way to freedom will find emancipation from sin. “So,” declared Jesus, “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
I wonder if Henry Brown ever suffered nightmares of being back in his box? I do know that Christians—though freed from the penalty of all sin and declared righteous in God’s sight—sometimes feel a spiritual claustrophobia. It’s almost as though they’ve returned to the bondage of the years before they knew Jesus. Sinful choices and activities can cause God’s forgiven people to feel this way. But there are other reasons why believers may not be breathing the sweet air of spiritual freedom.
If you feel boxed in spiritually, perhaps it’s because you’ve experienced what the apostle Paul feared for the souls of some: “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3, nasb). Paul’s readers had been distracted by the message of “another Jesus” (verse 4). In other words, men had come preaching about Jesus, but spoke of Him differently than the apostle Paul. Many commentators think that false teachers had told the Christians in Corinth about Christ in a way that caused them to rely less on Jesus and more on their own good deeds and spirituality. As they did so, they were “led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”
Whenever this happens to a Christian, your spiritual life soon becomes burdensome. You feel “back in the box” of slavery to duties that bring no joy. Instead of refreshing and enrapturing your soul with the love of Christ, your spiritual habits seem complicated, unfulfilling, like just “one more thing to do” in an overly busy life.
If you recognize yourself back in this bondage, rest your soul afresh in “the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” Look to Him to be the satisfaction of what God requires from you. Rediscover your spiritual practices as the means of experiencing and enjoying Jesus, and not a mere checklist of requirements to keep.
But perhaps, as far as you know your own heart, you have kept your eyes on Christ alone, not only to make you right with God, but also to keep you right with God—and you still feel boxed in. The responsibilities of life have become so overwhelming that even your spiritual disciplines only seem to add to the burden and complexity of your weary existence. Spiritually you feel as dry and rootless as tumbleweed. If this is you, it’s my prayer that as you turn these pages, your devotion to Christ will become simpler and purer. And as it does, may you feel the refreshing return of the gentleness and love of Christ in your soul.
