Freedom part 1
I always say freedom comes in two forms. Freedom FROM sin... and freedom TO love. And I think those two things are both equally important. Because sin (unbelief, or not knowing and believing the love of Christ) keeps us in bondage. Keeps us from experiencing the gift we have been given. Keeps us from, well, living. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. But what I want to dive into for the next few days really comes from Galatians 4:4-8 (NLT), "But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir." Interesting that the phrase here is not "slaves to sin" but "slaves to the law." I think it's kind of bizarre that people in this day and age, on this side of the cross, still want that law so bad. But then again, people still want hell to be a place of eternal concious torment, but I digress. The point of the law is that it kept us in bondage. A list of do's and don't's that nobody could follow. Especially when you consider Jesus saying something along the lines of, "If you hate someone you've murdered them in your heart." Like... He REALLY made it impossible to keep the law. Because He took it to the root, or the heart, of the matter. Which, of course, is the heart. An external list of rules does not address what is going on inside your heart. Jesus came and nailed the law to the cross. Fulfilling it and taking it out of our way. Giving us a New Commandment for a New Man. The commandment to love one another as HE loves us. The commandment to receive and release His love. Which frees us from everything else. The fire that is God (that is love) has consumed everything but itself (Himself). Love is all that's left and love is all we need. True freedom is knowing what we have been freed FROM, and what we have been freed TO. Freed FROM sin and the law--the wages of sin (or, again, unbelief) being death. And freed TO love. Freed to live. We know that we have passed from death unto life because of love. The love that God has for us. The love that we return to Him by giving it to each other. Receiving it and releasing it. Receiving it and releasing it. I'll keep saying it. Receiving it and releasing it. We're not trying to earn anything. We have been given a gift. Adopted, so to speak, into a royal family. Now we can know God as something other than a distant, angry taskmaster. Now we can know God as... Father. Abba. Daddy. No longer a slave (to sin and death and the law) but a Son. God's own child. And, if that's not enough, not only a child, but an heir to the throne! I have no lack because my God has no lack. And, like I've taught my own son his entire life, "What's mine is yours." God isn't holding anything back from us. He wants us to experience everything He has and everything He is. That's why He gave us His only begotten Son--so that we might know that WE are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased! So that we might know (and believe) the truth, and that the truth might set us free and make us free. Well, let me restate that. Because the truth HAS set us free and made us free. He has given us His only begetten Son so that we might KNOW (and believe) that we ARE free! So that we can experience and enjoy the freedom that is God's love!