Let Freedom Keep Us Free
We celebrate our freedom, and we should because freedom is a gift from God.
But there is a responsibility that goes with freedom and it is not something to take lightly or for granted. Freedom is not free, someone has to pay for that freedom. Here in America, many thousands of lives were given for that freedom. God, in His great love, sent His Son to die for our freedom. Galatians 5:1 tells us this,
“It was for freedom that Messiah set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
Because of that freedom we have a responsibility to the Kingdom of God. We serve a King, and we serve the One who set us free. When God gave Israel the Ten Commandments He began by saying this, Exodus 20:1-3, “Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
We see that both times God was setting His people free from slavery. Paul told the Galatians that they were not to be yoked again to slavery.
Romans 6:16-18 says this, “Do you not know that the one to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of that same one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and after being freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.”
We must no longer serve our flesh, because it is our flesh that must die for us to be free.
Romans 8:12-13 tells us, “So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Galatians 5:24 says, “Now those who belong to Messiah Yeshua crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
If we are set free from sin and now we serve the One who set us free then we must follow in His footsteps and crucify our flesh and no longer serve ourselves.
Galatians 5:13-14 tells us this, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
When we sin, we sin against God and we sin against each other. But God is love and we are to be like Him. If we are truly free, then we must loveGod and we must love one another.
Galatians 5:15 goes on to say, “But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”
And why do we act like this toward one another? One because we do not love, but two because we have not truly become slave to righteousness.
James 4:1-5 tells us, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is the source not your pleasures that wage war in your body’s parts? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, “He jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us.”
We must crucify our flesh and become new creations now living and walking in the Spirit, for the Spirit of the Lord gives us freedom.
Romans 8:9-11 says this, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Messiah he does not belong to Him. If Messiah is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Yeshua from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Messiah Yeshua from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Today, let us be thankful for our freedoms, and let us consider the cost that was paid for that freedom. Let us also consider that we too must die so that we may be free in Messiah. Let us also give our freedom back to God, and make ourselves slave to His righteousness serving Him and one another in love, as we live in the Spirit of Messiah.
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