Freedoms Reach

 

If ever, then, the Son should be making you free, you will be really free. 

John 8: 36, Concordant New Testament 

There is a common desire among humans.  The desire to be free.  Due to this desire for freedom, men have given their lives and sacrificed more than they normally would.  All to be free.  Dictators have been toppled and men set free.  In our own country, the desire for freedom nearly tore our nation apart.  It seems that freedoms reach definitely has no limits.  Ask anyone and they may tell a story of their own struggle for freedom.  But what does freedom have to do with Christianity?  What does freedom have to do with knowing Jesus?  Well, in the grand scheme of things, it is Jesus who has set us free.  Think back to that Sunday sermon you once heard on the evils of sin.  How sin was an addiction to all who engaged in it.  All of this is true.  Left to our sin, we would definitely not be free.  For sin is like slavery in that it holds all engaged in it in bondage.  But God has more in mind for His children than to suffer in the bondage of sin.  This is why it is through Christ Jesus that we are set free from sin.  Through His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus became sin that it would be put to death with Him {2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 6:6}.  Most well meaning Christians seem to be unaware of this gift which has rid them of the sin they continue to struggle with day by day.  I counted myself as one of those people for some time.  I was told that I would continue to struggle with my sin until I lived my life right and adhered to the rules of the church.  Of course, my freedom in Christ had nothing to do with church theology and everything to do with realizing who I really was inside.  All of the scriptures I have listed on our freedom in Jesus were available to me, yet somehow I missed them.  I believe that many Christians find themselves in the same situation today.  Longing for freedom but unsure where to find it.  

Knowing this, that our old humanity was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin may be nullified, for us by no means to be still slaving for sin, for one who dies has been justified from sin.  Now if we died together with Christ, we believe that we shall be living together with Him also, having perceived that Christ, being roused from among the dead, is no longer dying.  Death is lording it over Him no longer, for in that He died, He died to sin once for all time, yet in that He is living, He is living to God.  Thus you also, be reckoning yourselves to be dead, indeed, to sin, yet living to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 6: 6-11, Concordant New Testament 

One of the biggest hurdles I faced in my own realization of Christ in me was that I had already died.  That's right, the apostle Paul proclaims that I am now dead to that man I once was.  Another life given in the fight for freedom.  Yet in my own desire to be free, I failed to recognize that through Christ Jesus I already was.  Jesus paid the ultimate price for my freedom.  So, if I died, who am I?  Well, Paul speaks to this as well in Galatians.  We did not perish only to be reborn as we once were.  As Paul claims, "If we died together with Christ, we believe that we shall be living together with Him as well" {Romans 6:8}.  It is Christ Jesus who lives in me today {Galatians 2:20}.  

In our struggle for freedom, I would point out what I call a false image of freedom.  This is the illusion of freedom we get from believing in the lie of the enemy that it is we ourselves who have achieved our freedom.  Not only does this remove God from the picture, but gives us a false assurance that we have control over our own lives.  Through Jesus we have been set free, yet we take the lie of the accuser and run with it.  The accuser will tell us that we can be free apart from God.  Yet it is only because of Gods love and grace that we are free.  Freedom does not mean that we are now individuals living a life apart from God.  True freedom tells us that we are free because of God.  

There is no independent, self-operating self in the universe, except the One who calls Himself the I AM {Ex 3:14} and says, "I am the Lord and there is none else, there is no God beside Me" {Isa 45:5}.

Norman Grubb, No Independent Self 

~Scott~