FREE TO BE

FREE TO BE

 

 

“Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last?  Who can forget these impassioned words of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King?   Words that still ring loudly over the decades since spoken.  While this country has progressed a long ways down the road of racial equality we have not yet reached the goal of true parity among the races. 

 

While we Christians have progressed a long ways down the road of faith, many of us have not yet reached the goal of true spiritual freedom.  Why?  Because our faith is not yet mature.  Why?  Because we have not yet matured as Christians.  Why?  Because maturation as a Christian is a life long pursuit.  Does that mean I will never mature as a Christian?  It means that faith is a growing process, never complete.  There is always more to learn, more to study.  For those of you who like to learn, you are in the right area. 

 

So many times we hear from the pulpit and read in the Bible that Jesus died on the cross, taking all the sins of the world with him, which includes our own personal sins.  But until we internalize that information, make it a part of us, absorb it into our hearts, until this happens it is not yet a personal message, something for us which has personal ramifications.  When we do finally absorb this information, which is a revelation from the Holy Spirit, we feel a sense of freedom, we can relax, the fight is over. 

 

But, we must remain ever vigilant, the evil one is also ever present.  He will make every effort to dissuade us from our sense of peace and rob us of the joy found in the knowledge that we are reconciled with God.  It is his mission to rob us of the joy, to make us revert to the old self that was not reliant on God and steal the peace we enjoy in a close, personal relationship with the Father.  Often we resolve to accept the redemption provided by Christ on the cross.  We throw off the past guilt and shame.  We become new creations who rejoice in the richness of God‘s grace and bask in the warmness of His forgiveness only to lapse back to our old selves, the ones that reclaim the spiritual poverty we have dwelt with so long.  It’s like taking trash to the dump, sifting through it one more time then reclaiming bits and pieces of it and taking them back home again.  Leave them there!  You don’t need them anymore!  Claim the freedom from sin that God has, by His grace, granted to you.

 

John 8:36  “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

 

Free from what, sin, yes.  Guilt, definitely, you are forgiven.  Worry, who needs it?  Fear, with God on our side what or who is there to fear?

 

John 16: 33 “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

 

The world would have us believe that freedom lies in the independence of the individual.  One is free to do what ever one pleases.  Therein lays the lie. With freedom comes responsibility.  If one is free without responsibility he is not free at all but is a slave to self.  A slave to his own shortcomings, his own desires and lusts.  He is condemned to live a life of tribulation.  Never satisfied. 

 

Spiritual responsibility means getting into the Word, reading the Bible.  It means sharing the Good News with those around you so that God may use you to build the kingdom.  Spiritual responsibility means praying to God.  It means being aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  Responsibility means patterning your life around the example and teachings of Jesus.  It means being a Christian in all respects out of love of God for all he has done and is doing for you every day.

 

Be ever mindful of the freedom that Jesus bought and paid for on the cross.  Leave your sins and worries at the foot of the cross and never, never pick them up again.  You are now free to be the spiritual being that God means for you to be.  You are free to be.