A slave should not address his master as his lord because...

A slave should not address his master as his lord because the Lord of you all is Allah." Thus it becomes known to us that even the slaves, while talking to each other, must avoid such expressions during the course of their conversation such as "I am a slave of such and such person and such and such person is my lord." Taking this into consideration, how unfair is it to be known by such names (denoting slavery to someone) as the slave of the Prophet, the slave of Ali, the slave of His Excellency, the choicest worshipper, the worshipper of an adolescent boy, the worshipper of a woman, the worshipper of one's religious preceptor and what an arrogance it is to often observe such remarks that "You are the master of our lives and wealth, or we are at your absolute command, and we shall obey you in whatever you instruct us to do." All these observations are based on falsehood and Shirk (polytheism).

An excellent example to pay respect to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}: It is narrated by Umar {May Allah have mercy on him} that the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said: "Do not exceed the limits in dignifying me as the Christians have done to Jesus {Peace be upon Him}.I am none but Allah's slave only and therefore you should call me a slave of Allah and His Messenger." (Al-Bukhari-Muslim) What the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} meant to convey to the people is that whatever qualities and perfections Allah has conferred on him, become epitomized in calling him a slave and a Messenger of Allah, because what greater status or title of honor may be conferred on a human being than awarding him the honor of being a Prophet?

The rest of the other titles just rank underneath it. But a human being, despite being awarded Prophethood, is still a human being. He takes pride in being a slave itself. He does not acquire Divine qualities after being awarded the Prophethood and he does not get merged with Allah's Self (i.e. by losing his separate identity as a slave). We must treat human beings in their capacity of human beings only.

We should not become like Christians who did not recognize Jesus {Peace be upon Him} as a human being and gave him a Divine status and thus they became disbelievers and polytheists and deserved Allah's wrath and perdition.