Pastor's Pen October 2, 2010
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The Reality of Freedom
“It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.” Galatians 5:1
The wording of Galatians 5:1 is interesting. The apostle Paul states, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.” Sounds redundant, doesn’t it? But the Holy Spirit is making an important point. Jesus didn’t die to set us free so that we continue living as slaves. He set us free from slavery so that we could live in that freedom.
The Lord states the obvious here because He knows that too often we who have been set free by Christ choose to live in bondage. I know that sounds crazy…and it is! But it is true. We who have been freed often live like slaves.
It’s like a billionaire living like a pauper. It’s like an extremely gifted athlete living like a klutz. These scenarios do not make sense.
What would you say about a billionaire standing on the corner holding a sign saying, “Will work for food”? We would have to conclude that the problem is in the mind of the wealthy person. Somehow he has been convinced that he is poor even though he has billions of dollars in assets and his bank account never dips below six figures. We would then try and help the person move out of the fog they are in back into reality. Don’t live like a pauper when you have more than you could ever need.
This must be how the Lord feels when He sees us, His children, living like we are orphans. He has set us free and we live in bondage to various things. This scenario doesn’t make any sense either. We must conclude that the problem is in our minds. We too have somehow been convinced that we are not meant to be free...that it is our lot in life to continue to be slaves to sin even though reality is we have been set free by Christ.
This is how the enemy of our soul operates. There isn’t one thing he can do about the truth. Jesus died and rose again and has set us free. His only hope of keeping us back from living in this freedom is to lie to us...to mess with our minds. He’s been practicing for thousands of years the art of deception and he is extremely good at it. He has more lies than can be numbered. He knows how to attack our minds and whisper his lies to us and when we choose to believe his lies we walk out of our freedom and back again into bondage.
The remedy for this is extremely simple—THE TRUTH! Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free,” John 8:32. All that is needed to dispel the darkness is to turn on the light! And when the Holy Spirit turns on the light for us and dispels the lies of the enemy we will once again know the joy of our freedom in Christ. You’ve been set free. Don’t live like a slave!
Pastor Dan
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