Freedom

The sermon at church this past Sunday was really good. It focused on an area that I had first hand experience with for the first time in my life just recently: Freedom from sin. I never paid much attention to being a slave to sin. I never really thought I was. I mean, I sinned, I asked for forgiveness, and it was done. Then I sinned again... It was only recently that I saw areas of my life that I had been enslaved to. Areas of sin. Choices I had made that trapped me. I was enslaved to the sinful decisions I had made, was clueless about it, and had no idea how to change the path I was on!

The question was posed: Have you ever said to God... "Lord, I would rather DIE than live like (or with) this!" Yes!!! The answer our Pastor gave was a truth that I have heard since I was a kid. But with the freedom I have experienced in the past few months, I get it in a different way. The thing is... I have already died! I have already been crucified with Him! I am no longer a slave to sin! I am free! I have already died. I have already died. Wow. So simple, yet so complex. I have already died. Sounds kinda negative. The amazing part is not that I have died to my sin, but that I have been raised up with Him! That is what makes me free!

Something else he said really hit me. Again, it came from a verse I had memorized and quoted many times over the years. But the way it was worded had an impact on me. Romans 6:13 ... Do not offer the parts of your body as instruments of sin.... Once we belong to Christ... once we hold on tightly to Him, Satan can't say "come with me... you are mine." We are not. What he can say is... "I have this slander to spread... can I borrow your mouth?" ... "I have this work to be done... can I borrow your hands?" Our response (This is the part I love!): Stop loaning your body to sin!

I love that all this has been brought to the forefront of my mind as we near Easter. I mean, this is the season we remember His death, and celebrate Him being raised from the dead. And in that, He gave us freedom! If the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed!

Romans 6: 6-14 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.

That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.