There's an important lesson for us in today's reading, and it's the idea that someone will be our master – the question is whom that someone will be. God taught an important lesson to Rehoboam about this when He allowed Egypt to come in and begin being the "master" of Israel. Contrary to what you might think, the purpose of this wasn't to spite the Israelites. The purpose was to help them realize that the "burden" the Lord placed on them wasn't really a burden at all. In fact, their new master would place an enormous burden on them, and they would hopefully see the pains of not following the Lord.
Last night I spent about 45 minutes explaining the concept of authority to a ground of young teens from the school where I'm teaching. So often we think that God is about laws, but the truth is that He's about freedom. God wants us to experience maximum freedom in life, and in order to experience that, we need to submit not only to Him but also to the authorities that He places in our lives. Jesus promises that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
You will serve a master: whether drugs, alcohol, dating, children, etc. The question is which master do you actually want? They all carry burdens, but the burden the Lord places on us actually leads us to freedom.
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