Becoming Gollum

“For where your treasure is, there your heart is also” Matthew 6:21

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novels “Lord of the Rings” we meet a curious creature named Gollum.  He’s a vile creature and yet something to be pitied as the sorcerer Gandalf has said. Gollum is obsessed with The Ring.  He even calls it his “precious”.  Yet we catch just a short glimpse of what Gollum looked like before he turned into this vile, repugnant creature.  He too was a Hobbit from some shire, and he too had friends and family.  Then the ring captures his attention one day as he mistakenly discovers it and he kills one of his own to claim it for himself…Gollum is born.

He was never supposed to be this way.  He wasn’t created to live out his days in total and complete subjugation to this evil that is the ring, yet he is a slave to it, and a direct result of his slavery is this ugly transformation into a despised and tortured creature.

We’re all Gollum.  Every single one of us has been bound by sin and subjected to enslavement to our “precious”.  Since the fall of man, when Adam and Eve broke God’s heart in the garden of Eden, try as we might we couldn’t break our obsession with sin…and so sin transformed us.  We were at one time created in the very image of God, but because of sin that image is now marred within us…there is still some resemblance but it’s faded.

What is our ‘precious’…is it an obsession with stuff?  Could our ‘precious’ be relationships? How about money, or our jobs, or our kids…there are many, many things with which sin enslaves.  Whatever consumes most of our time, whatever we think about incessantly becomes our god.  What is your god?

Our Heavenly Father has, since the fall of man, attempted to bridge this void that is sin between us.  We have all fallen and so Christ became our bridge, through His sacrifice on the cross, between us and God.  Christ has taken ‘the ring’ from our possessions, died for us so that our resemblance to God could be restored.  What love to have taken our place!  He knew we couldn’t save ourselves and so He came to our level and took upon himself our enslavement…and it didn’t end there.  He was strong enough to conquer sin and death and open the doors of heaven for us.

We are all Gollum…but we don’t have to remain that way any longer!  We can be free!  If you have been set free by Christ, what’s stopping you from sharing this with others who are still captured in their enslavements?  This good news must be shared to help set the captives free!

We don’t’ have to be fallen and rejected any longer!  We can be transformed and renewed by the grace of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ.  Will you let go of your ‘precious’ and give Him a try?  If you do, you will find yourself set free indeed!