Liberty part 2
When you're in bondage, you may be "living" but you certainly aren't ALIVE. And make no mistake, that's what Jesus came to fix. He didn't come to make "bad" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were the walking dead. The living dead. We were trying to do in order to be. Trying to earn the love and acceptance of a God who we thought was distant and angry. We didn't have His Spirit--the love receptor--so we couldn't receive His love. We couldn't believe He could love dirty sinners like us. We were God's enemies in our mind because of our wicked works. We were robbing ourselves from the gift of God by trying to earn something that was freely given. And, again, that's where the Holy Spirit comes on. "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). Now watch this. A word study of the three key words in this verse really make it come alive. Spirit is number 4151 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "current of air, that is, breath." Lord is number 2962 and it means, "supreme in authority, controller." And liberty is number 1657 and means, "freedom." So where the breath of the controller is, there is freedom. And I know on the surface that might seem confusing. Because if the controller is speaking, that would seem to imply slavery or bondage. Which is how some people see God. "Jesus is my boss." I have to do what God says or else He's going to get me. That's the Law of Moses, though. NOT the perfect law of liberty. 2 Corinthians 5:14 in the NLT tells us, "Either way, Christ's love controls us." The breath--or the Word--of God is love. Every breath we take and every move we make flows from the love that fills us to overflowing. And that's what freedom is really all about. Freedom is not behaving badly and getting away with it. Freedom is being able to do what we truly want to do! Not freedom TO sin, but freedom FROM sin. Freedom TO love, because we know and believe that we ARE loved. If you don't have freedom, you don't have life. To live is to love. To love is to live. Jesus gave us freedom from death! I'll say it again: We WERE dead in our trespasses and sins. Jesus brought us out of death and into life. Abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life! We were dead. Then we died with Jesus again on the cross. That's the second death. Then when He rose again, we rose again. The new birth. A new creature. A new man. A new life. Let me say it like this, "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). His death was our death. His death was the death OF death. And now we are free. Free to run. Free to dance. Free to love. Free to live!