Out and In part 1
To be perfectly honest with you, I think we in the "church world" spend WAAAYYYYY too much time focusing on what we have been freed from. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's phenomenal when we talk about the chains being broken. When we talk about being freed from sin and death. That's magnificent. But it's not the be-all end-all. Because God didn't just bring out OUT of bondage. He brought us IN to the Promised Land. And if we never get past that focus of where we used to be, we'll never be able to enjoy where we are now. If we're always trying to overcome something that Jesus already overcame, then we don't really understand the finished work. If we think we're supposed to fight against sin then we don't understand Hebrews 12:1, which instructs us to lay asid the weight, and the sin that so easily besets us. And if all we're focused on is sin... that's what's going to dominate out lives. Because what you magnify is what manifests. Even if you're magnifying it in the sense of not doing it. Let me give you an example. You're in the car on the way home from a long trip. And you forgot to go to the bathroom before you left. So you set your mind to work. "I don't need to pee. I don't need to pee." What happens? Everything else fades away until there is only your need to pee! Even by trying to "overcome" the urge--that probably wasn't even there until you realized you forgot to take care of it before you left--what you really did was just make it stronger and stronger. Because you focued on it. You breathed life into it. You were so focused on what you needed to get out of, that you didn't give yourself a chance to enjoy what you were in. And to complete my analogy, either you made your parents pull over or you suffered the whole way home. You created a problem for yourself by trying to avoid a problem. Because you weren't avoiding it at all. You were focused on it. So. What I'm trying to say is, what we've been freed FROM is amazing. But if we stay stuck on it then we really aren't experiencing freedom from it. What we need to do is understand that when Jesus died, we died. And when Jesus was buried, we were buried. We don't need to carry that corpse around anymore. He gone! We don't have to deal with all the stuff that he had to deal with. We can lay it aside. Because when Jesus rose again, we rose again. To walk in newness of life. To experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Him live it in us, and through us, and as us! He brought us out... and He brought us in. Out of trouble with sin and death, and into life! Out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land of rest! That's not where we might be someday if we [fill in the blank]. That's where we are right now because Jesus finished the work! HE brought us out, and HE brought us in!