I'm Free!

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yolk of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Jesus has set us free! He broke the chains of sin and death and now we can live in the freedom He has given us. We don't need to battle against sin because Jesus overcame it and set us free from it! We don't need to fear death because Jesus overcame it and set us free!

Jesus said that His yolk is easy and His burden is light. He exchanged our yolk of slavery for His yolk of freedom - now we can live life to the full - full of love, peace, joy...

...because its who we are! We are a free people.

How do I know we're free?

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 2 Cor 3:17. If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you are free! Because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

I'm not saying that we won't have 'bad days' or face trials - Jesus tells us that we will face trials! But it is through these trials that our faith is strengthened! (James 1:2) Because we are overcomers! We don't just 'get by' in this life...

...We GLORIOUSLY OVERCOME!

We have Jesus in us and Jesus has overcome the world! So there is nothing that is too high, too deep or too wide for us!

We all have a birth certificate. It tells us our citizenship - who we are. That citizenship may limit us to certain parts of the world. For example, I am a British citizen, therefore in order for me to get into Canada, I needed a visa because I am not a Canadian citizen. But first and foremost, I am a citizen of heaven! As citizens of heaven we have NO limits, NO borders we can't cross. We are a free people!

What have we been freed into?

1. We are free to love

Jesus set us free from ALL the laws that we read about in the old testament and replaced it with one; to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbour as yourself.

Because God first loved us we are able to love others. - He showed the ultimate act of love by sending His son to die for us.

He loves us inspite of our sins and iniquities - He loves us for who we are.

Its because of this love that we can love others freely.

2. We are free to be.

                                  ... to be who God has called us to be. 

The sooner we accept our identity and everything that entails, we will be free to be who God has called us to be - a child of God, an ambassador for Christ, chosen and made in Christs image.

We find our identity in Christ and we are totally free to be just like He is.

He even tells us in the gospels that we are to do even greater things than He did! Thats a big calling to live up to but He has given us everything we need to do it.

We just need to simply be who God has called us to be and let Him work through us.

Find out who you are and live it out. If you don't know how to do that, look at who Jesus is because we are to be as He is.

The question then isn't "who am i?" but the question is "who is Jesus?"

(I'll come back to this in another post!)

3. We are free to know him.

Jesus died so that we may have right-standing with God. God wants a relationship with us!

"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:4

God knows us better than we know ourselves, but there was a time when we couldn't know Him because we were stopped by sin. - its because of Jesus that we are now free to know Him!

It's when we're in relationship with God that we can better focus on Him, hear His voice and discern His call on our lives.

We should aim to know him so well that His voice is the one we're tuned into and when we act, its because we've seen how He would act.

What a great life of freedom we have!

Jesus set us free so that we could have life and life to the full!

Our lives are worth Christ dying for - make every day count!

Live like you are a child of God and know that wherever God sends you will become a place of adventure because He has freed us into life in all its fullness!