There’s much talk about being set free from personal weaknesses, habits, addictions and the like. And, thank God, his power is the strength in which we can do all things. But, lets go back to the very BASIC idea of us being set free.
Colossians 1:11-14 New Readers Version
“We want you to be very strong in keeping with his glorious power. We want you to be patient. Never give up. Be joyful as you give thanks to the Father. He has made you fit to share with all his people. He has saved us from the kingdom of darkness. He has brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. Because of what the Son has done, we have been set free. Because of him, all our sins have been forgiven.”
In the most fundamental and foundational sense we have been set free from having to live our lives any longer in the identity of SELF, the sin of SELF , or the flesh that seeks the things opposite of the Spirit of God. Our trouble isn’t in the power to set us free. Our trouble is in not recognizing that it has already happened. And, when we don’t realize that it has happened on the Cross, all else is just a spinning wheel of trying to attain a better human condition.
God sent Jesus to deliver us from sin and self, and ultimately death. Jesus came that we could be born again in the Spirit, live in God’s original design for mankind, and to live in who this new creation in Christ Jesus is. In other words We have been set free in the Spirit sense, and we are to learn to walk in these new Spirit shoes, holding on to our Born-Again passport of identity of belonging to a different country. And, it’s these Spirit shoes that we walk in on regular dirty streets in the imperfect world we live in.
But, for many of us being set free has nothing to do with being set apart, it’s just being given some relief from a problem.
Yes, everyone wants relief. That’s a no brainer.
But…let’s think about things below the surface.
- Freedom in Christ is about a supernatural act of God that changed our identity.
- When you accepted Christ you were set free from self, and forgiven of your sins.
- At this point in time, Scripture says you became a New Creation.
Think about what this is saying:
- The old creation, human flesh only creation….died, as you came to Christ.
- The new woman, born again, new and alive in the Spirit…was created.
- You have been given a new power in which to live in, and a new identity to find confidence in. And your earthly body has now become his temple, a vessel in which he works through.
- All of this gives you a new identity, which gives you a new purpose, and an explanation for living.
How? The Holy Spirit sealed you and made a home in you.
Why? Because you now belong to God and are being set apart for His purpose on earth for you.
- We look in the mirror and see the same woman.
- We get faced with temptation and have the same feelings.
- We don’t understand on a practical level what this means to be set apart and different at the core. But truth is truth, and this is what God’s word says:
2 Cornithians 5:17 New Readers Version
“Any one who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come! It is all from God. He brought us back to himself through Christ’s death on the cross.”
Now in the Amplified Version:
“Therefore if any person is ingrafted in Christ, the Messiah, he is a new creature altogether, a new creation; the old previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold the fresh and new has come!
The Message:
“The old life is gone, the new life burgeons! Look at it!”
Paul prayed that they would know. Let’s begin praying that we would know too.
Today’s Prayer
Father,
New Life? My life so often does not feel like there is anything new about it. I often feel trapped in not being able to “get it”, not being able to understand what you have for me. And, so I live afraid of not doing this spiritual life “right”. Fear has many faces. But one of the faces of fear is the worry that I am not “free” enough, not walking in the Spirit shoes the right way. This fear is not of you. But, to pray to you and ask for wisdom to know how to put those shoes you so freely bought for me on…that is a different kind of freedom. The freedom of learning to embrace the journey, the process. Develop me Jesus, and may I live a life that pleases you.
