Freedom.
Welcome aboard The Clarion Express, because we are going to talk about Freedom.
This year we celebrate our 250th year of freedom here in this country. Was it worth all those who fought and died? If we do not stop to remember the cost or appreciate what others did for us, then why have freedom? All people are really free because our freedom, no matter where we live, comes from God. But there is more to this. Galatians 5:13 says, “ My brothers, God called you to be free. But do not use your freedom as an excuse to do the things that please your sinful self. Serve each other with love.”
God, our Creator, created us to be free, but because of sin we lost our freedom which resulted in us being in bondage. You see, sin separates us from God. But thanks be to God who sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins so that now, when we repent of our sins, we can once again be in good standing with God through the shed blood of Yeshua (which is His righteousness), in which we can now stand. It was because of love that God set us free.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
It was God’s love that caused Him to send His Son to shed His blood for us. As Hebrews 9:22b says, “Unless there is the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin.” Galatians 5:1 tells us this, “We have freedom now, because the Messiah made us free. So stand strong in that freedom. Don’t go back into slavery again.” Romans 6:15-23 says, “So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new Master, One whose commands set you free to live openly in His freedom! I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Yeshua, our Master.”
So God equates freedom with love. God loves us, we love God, so we must love one another. God gave Himself for us, so we must give ourselves to others. We want to have freedom, then live for God. Don’t be a slave to sin, but be a slave to God’s righteousness. Galatians 5:14 says, “The whole law is made complete in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor the same as you love yourself.”
If we live in freedom, free from the slavery of sin, then God’s love for us will never end as Romans 8:35-39 tells us, “Who will separate us from the love of Messiah? Will tribulation, or trouble, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Just as it is written: “For your sake we are killed all day long; we were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.”
True freedom is love for God or for our fellow man, no matter what may come our way. Is this not what they did 250 years ago when they fought and gave their lives so that we today may be free? Is this not what our Savior Yeshua did when He gave His life so that we may be free from sin? As John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.”
Now that is a freeing thought that only can be had if we let go of those things that keep us in bondage and separate us from God, but when we do, the love of God fills us so that we too, can do great acts of love.
Let freedom ring in our hearts today!
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