Finding Freedom

This past month the Lord has taught me a lot about what walking in true freedom looks like.

I have always known that freedom is something the Lord offers us as Christians, but I have never tasted true freedom until coming on the Race.

My Christian walk thus far has been a walk in bondage.….let me rephrase: I, myself, have been living a life in bondage. I have been tying my salvation to my behavior, attitude, appearance, and how well I follow law. This has led to very little freedom to live, make mistakes, and grow. Instead of embracing the abundant life the Lord was offering, I was living in fear.

The problem was, I didn’t realize that there was so much more that The Lord offered- so much more that He was calling me to walk in. I figured that what I had was it- and I was fine with it.

And I can’t help but to think that lots of others are living this way as well.

The American church has become a church of appearance; a church where failure is looked down upon; a church where your social status is dependent on your outward godliness. So many modern day churches have become a Sunday morning/Wednesday evening routine where you come in, put a smile on your face, and never share the serious issues that are occurring in your life.

This is so unbiblical.

And for this reason, there are a multitude of people who don’t even know the true gospel message. People just like me, who have lived their whole lives inside the church yet still live a life in fear of not being good enough. On the contrary, there are people who don’t want anything to do with the church because they believe the Christian lifestyle is a life full of rules they must follow.

Why would any unbeliever want to dedicate their life to a “religion” that is nothing but bondage to a bunch of ancient laws? How will we ever reach a lost and dying world if we are not walking in the complete freedom that Christ died to give us?

Unbelievers don’t know about the freedom, because we aren’t walking it out. I wasn’t walking it out.

The Lord has graciously been reminding me that He loves me because of who He is, not because of who I am.

True Christians are not obligated to keep the Laws of God in order to be forgiven of our sins – or even to be made righteous in His sight. Because God understands that no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to be “good enough”. John Piper says in his book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die that, “even our good deeds are defective, because we don’t honor God in the way we do them…without Christ-exalting faith, our deeds will signify nothing but rebellion”.

That is why the death of Jesus is so important.

Christ took our place on the cross, cancelled our sins by His blood, and made us righteous in His sight.

“Our sin was imputed to Him and He became our pardon. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and thus He became our perfection” (John Piper). Jesus became our sin, so that we don’t have to pay the price for what we have done. So that we can have communion with a perfect God. We are no longer bound by the law. We are declared just; tried and found innocent. This is freedom.

Walking in freedom is essential to living the Christian life.

We do not need to keep the law in order to please God. God’s favor is not dependent on our obedience, but on what He accomplished on the cross. We are free to drink coffee, dance, laugh, go to work, make mistakes and learn from them, enjoy life, and so much more!

God is not a God standing above us with a whip ready to strike us every time we mess up. He is a God who is both loving and just. His perfect love is willing to meet the demands of His justice because we are not able to.

Yet, our freedom is not an excuse to sin. But when Christ lives in us, we have a desire to follow the law because His love flows out of our hearts.

I am just now learning to walk in freedom. Freedom from comparison. Freedom from others opinions of me. Freedom from fear. Freedom from anger and bitterness. Freedom from my past sins. And so much more.

My heart longs for every Christian to start walking in the true freedom that God sacrificed His son to give us. To choose not to walk in freedom, is to refuse the gift that God has so graciously given us.

Everyone is searching for freedom. So when we, as the Church, start to embrace a life of faith and not works, unbelievers will see and want what we have!

 Verses:

• Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
• Romans 6: 6-7, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
• Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• John 8:36, “So if the Son makes you free, ye are free indeed.”
• Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”