Don’t Settle for Anything Less
John 8:36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed
It’s amazing, just over my lifetime, how many changes have taken place, as oppressive regimes have fallen. The Berlin wall came down in 1989. The Soviet Union came apart in 1991. Apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994.
Of course there are still plenty of oppressive regimes around the world, there are still more than enough conflicts and wars, but there has been a lot of change, even in my short lifetime. And hopefully we’ll see a lot more.
The good change happens, when countries move from oppression towards freedom. When, instead of looking after a privileged few through oppressive power structures, governments and leaders start to look after their people.
The bottom line is that you and I were created to be free. To be equal. To be able to live out who we’ve been made to be – of course, within the rule of law – but then without that, there can be no real freedom.
And yet, as individuals, we all too often squander that freedom. We all too often throw it away, through our own tyranny, our own selfishness, our own tendency to want to look after ourselves, at the cost of everyone else.
The Apostle Paul makes an interesting, almost blindingly, glimpsingly obvious point, about freedom:
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
In other words, wake up, get a revelation. This isn’t just talk this thing about freedom, there’s a point – God wants you to be free. Jesus put it slightly differently:
John 8:36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
I love that – free indeed. Really, truly, free from the slavery of sin. This is every bit as amazing as the Berlin Wall coming down, as the Soviet Union and communism coming to an end, as apartheid coming to an end – even more so because this freedom is available for every last human being on planet earth.
You can be a prisoner in a dungeon on death row, as in fact the Apostle Paul was when he wrote many of the books of the New Testament, and still be free indeed.
You can be in the middle of the worst imaginable circumstances of your life and yet, in Christ, still be … free indeed.
This is not a theory lesson. It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. He means for you to be free. Free indeed. Free from the sin that has ravaged your life. Free from the shackles of bondage.
And given the price He was prepared to pay for your freedom, with all my heart, I believe that He doesn’t want you to settle for anything less in your life than being … free indeed.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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