What is the church? Slaves.

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to in Revelations 1?

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves the things which must take place in a short time, and communicated it by sending it through his angel to his slave John, who testified about the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, all that he saw."

The church are the slaves of God.  Bought and paid for with the blood of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ.   It's a loaded word, full of baggage in our culture but it's true none the less.  As Hosea bought back his own wife, Gomer, so Christ has bought us when we were far from him.  When we were enemies to him.  When indeed, we were as good as dead, slaves of the world, our own flesh and sin, and the devil himself, prisoners and chattel under a cruel master who was killing us, Christ came and took our place, bought us at the expense of his own life and we went free!  And our freedom is to serve in love a new master, a new husband who gives us his own inheritance and feeds us from his hand.  Our obedience isn't forced.  Our goodness and good deeds and generosity aren't to earn anything.  We've already been given everything!  We obey in thankfulness.  We forgive as we've been forgiven.  We share what we have in abundance.  The chains we wear now are the weightless chains of love to a Master who has already showed His love for us.  Thanks be to God!