Freedom to Keep
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”
(Galatians 5:1, NIV).
Soldiers of freedom’s cause bled into the earth upon which we’ve founded our nation. The principles of honoring all our nation’s citizens with basic liberty and the right to worship wove the parchment with which we established America. Yet the issues of oppression surfaced again. And again.
Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for our eternal freedom from sin and death. He rent his pure and perfect life open as the gateway to peace with our heavenly Father. Christ served selfless love and sacred truth through his blood and flesh while commissioning all who follow to “do this in remembrance” of him. Yet even after receiving this hard-won gift of freedom, we remain locked in strongholds of our own volition.
The darkness of this world lures us away from these freedoms bought at such a high cost. An insidious enemy plots to steal the rights and dignity purchased for us through sacrifice. Evil lures us away into toxic indulgences iced with charm, the iron maiden of self-protection, or a bedful of avarice chiggers. We unwittingly betray our freedoms for fear, shame, or pride. The enemy will try his best to nail us inside despair. He will attempt to pluck our identification from our pockets so we forget who and whose we truly are. The enemy will enslave anyone he can and use them as a weapon, whether they recognize his insidious role through them or not. He plots destruction upon perpetrators of harm and their victims.
Evil lures us from our birthrights with lies. The prince of this world trades us a deceptively comfortable prison cell for the true freedom we might claim. So we lock ourselves inside fear and suspicion, self-destructive choices, or empty pursuits. And wonder why our relationships, well-being, and purpose cannot escape the dungeons closing in upon us.
We grieve our imprisonment in these shadowy strongholds because we were meant for more than this. God created us in his image as souls meant to soar in peace, joy, and liberty. Christ poured out his life to bless us with everything we needed to experience eternal freedom.
And we can claim our birthright once again.
We don’t need to accept the dungeons as our lot in life. We can embrace the truth and life granted by blood and break free. Through the truth and grace in our Savior, hope remains ours to seize. And this time, we can keep it.
It is one thing to be granted freedom by grace. To retain it, we must stand firm upon our identity as the heirs of LOVE and TRUTH personified.
We need not shrink back in suspicion of our brothers and sisters. We need not close our hearts to sharing love OR truth. We need not pursue comfort over kindness. We need not hide our potential to avoid risk.
If we stand firm (Ephesians 6) in Christ, no one can steal what he declared as ours.
I encourage you to consider your freedom as people of faith this week. Tune in for more insights on freedom with this episode of Flourish-Meant: https://tinayeager.libsyn.com/faith-of-our-founding-fathers-with-christina-rose