“And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. (John 8:32)
Your enjoyment of freedom is much more important to God than many of the day-to-day decisions that can fill us with so much concern.
It is really important to God that we live in Freedom! It is for that Freedom that Jesus endured the Cross. He wants us to live in the freedom and blessing that we were created for.
God takes it very seriously
“Stand fast in the Freedom you have been given” Galatians 5:1
Jesus said “ If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free…most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:32)
Our freedom is a gift from God.
Without God in our lives we have no ability be really Free, we are a slave to sin. With God in our lives we’re free to really live, because Jesus has broken the power of sin over us.
Christian freedom is not freedom to ignore God’s ways. It is freedom to be able to live His way – It’s being free to choose.
God takes our Freedom seriously. It is a clear and unqualified command: “Stand fast and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
This is the will of God for us: Uncompromising, unrelenting, indomitable freedom. For this Christ died. For this He rose. For this He sent His Holy Spirit.
The kids and I were watching “How to train a dragon 2”. There is an Alpha dragon that controls all the other dragons. Whatever he commands the other dragons have to do. This particular Alpha dragon is an evil dragon that takes control of “Toothless” a good dragon, and causes him to turn on His friend “Hiccup”. Toothless is under another’s control, a slave, given up to the will of another, tied or fasten with invisible chains and prevented from doing right by the evil Dragon.
Love ultimately wins out at the end, but I was thinking how that is how it is with mankind.
In John 8:32 Jesus tells us that whoever sins is the servant of sin. The word ‘servant’ in this text is doulos. It means to be servile; a slave; given up to the will of another:
doulos comes from the word deo, meaning ‘tied fast or to fasten with chains; prevented from doing right by Satan’.
This is why people need to be released to be able to choose. It’s why addicts, those who behave wickedly, or people who are against the things of God cannot escape their way of life on their own…they are ordered to do what they do by Satan, to whom they are bound to with chains. They are not ‘choosing’ – they are enslaved, powerless to do anything else but follow Satan’s desires (who interestingly is referenced in the bible as a dragon). Satan’s whole aim is to destroy people’s lives.
‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10)
But when you turn to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness and freedom, Jesus declares you will be ‘free indeed’. That is, you are set at liberty from servitude to sin – no longer a slave.
Your freedom doesn’t mean freedom to indulge your flesh to any perversion you want. It doesn’t mean freedom to be egotistical and self-centered no matter what it does to anybody else. It’s not a freedom that means that everybody can live and believe and do whatever they want to do, and there are no rules.
In a human society, chaos results if we consider just our own interests. Laws are put in place to hopefully protect people’s freedom. This is also true with the spiritual law of God.
James 1:25 in the Bible calls God’s word a “law of liberty,” or freedom, when it says that “he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does”
God wants you to protect and stand fast in the freedom that He has given. It was bought with a price! Don’t let the things of slavery and the way the world does things sneak back in to your life. Cut them off and turn away from them. Do it for the sake of your freedom.
“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”. (Hebrews 12:1)
Remember you have been set:
Free from the weight and consequences of sin. (Romans 6:23)
Free from guilt and condemnation, (Romans 8:1)
Free from fear, sickness, poverty, (2 Corinthians 8:9; Isaiah 53:4)
Free to be who God created me to be (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Free to live and love and enjoy the life you’ve been given
Free from the devil’s vices and efforts to entrap you. (James 4:7)
Free from the power of the devil (Colossians 2:15)
Free from grip of sorrow and pain (Matthew 6:25-34)
Free from worry (1 Peter 5:7)
Free from the fear of what’s going to happen. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Free from the fear of death, of the future because God has me. (Hebrews 2:15; Romans 8:32)
Stand fast in your freedom today.
Prayer: Jesus, set me free from others’ expectations of me, and the things that stress me out. Set me free from the fear that seems to be too often my companion. Instead, would you be my constant companion. Replace my worry with trust in you. Replace my fear with joy, my striving with peace. I choose to do things your way and not my own. I choose to live in freedom. In Jesus Name. Amen.
留言