For you were
called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for
the flesh, but through love serve one another.
Galatians 5:13
Everybody’s got a
word these days. It seems to be the new
New Year’s Resolution. My word for 2018 is ___________. If
I were picking a word for this year, I would choose freedom. It is what I most desire at this time in my
life – freedom from debt, worry, bad eating habits, etc. But what is true freedom?
Every human has four
endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative
imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose,
to respond, to change.
Stephen Covey
There are many
different definitions and many different kinds of freedom. Freedom to me, does not mean freedom to do whatever I want. The freedom I am after is freedom from the things in my life that
hold me back. Freedom from the bondage
of all these things that so heavily weigh me down.
True freedom for you
may look like prison to the rest of the world.
Paul and Silas were in prison and the doors flung open. They could have walked right out and had what
one would assume is freedom. When the
guard woke up and they were still there, he didn’t understand. To others it may have seemed that freedom was
given to them but they didn’t choose to take it. The truth is that they really did choose
freedom because they knew that staying in that cell was God’s plan. Freedom doesn’t always mean the gates
open. Sometimes freedom is found inside
the gates. They knew it was right to
stay when it looked so wrong to everyone else, but it served God’s purpose and
plan.
Freedom from sin
begins in our hearts and exists only in Jesus Christ. Through change in our heart and His
forgiveness comes freedom from sin. Only when our heart is changed can
freedom come. Maybe my word for this
year needs to be change instead of freedom because freedom only comes with change, never apart from it.
All true and
lasting freedom comes from Jesus, and only when we give it to Him and leave
it. I can fix (or with the help of
others) problems temporarily but until I give them to Jesus, they are not
fixed, and I am not really free.
Give. Forgiveness. Change.
Freedom.
Scripture to
Claim:
But now that you have been set free from sin and have
become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end,
eternal life.
