True Freedom

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

Jesus came to set us free from sin. When you became a Christian he removed the shackles of slavery that bound you to a life of bondage in sin. You are free, glory! You’re free from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, from the law as a system of salvation. You’re free form superstition and from all that enslaves you. However, it is not a license to sin. Paul addressed that heresy when he wrote to the Romans, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-4).”

When we sin we allow Satan to put on the chains that God removed from us. The sad thing is that that were permanently removed and they are chains of our own making.

Paul says we’re free, and he says this emphatically. He literally says that it’s for freedom that Christ has freed us. Jesus’ whole mission was to free us. Paul tells us in the clearest terms that in Jesus Christ we have been freed. But then he says, “Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Do you realize that this is one of the most important tasks that we have as followers of Jesus Christ? What is it? To simply stand firm. Paul is saying, from the freedom that is yours in Jesus Christ. Stay in one place. One of the biggest tasks in the Christian life is to guard against wandering off from the freedom that has been won for us through the saving work of Jesus Christ. You’re free, emphatically free. Now stand firm in that freedom and don’t wander off.