Galatians 5:1 “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.” Today's episode talks about freedom and how we can choose to live in that freedom or not. It encourages us to look at our lives and see where we might not be living in that freedom that Christ won for us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Stand Firm In Your Freedom
Galatians 5:1 “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.”
We have been talking a lot about freedom this quarter in my Encounter Ministries class. This quarter was on inner healing and I learned so much. I learned things I didn’t even know I needed to learn. It was amazing. I had heard that this quarter would probably be the most transformational because as we learn these various tools to set people free, we practice using these tools on each other. So, instead of just getting the book knowledge of how the tools work, we got first hand knowledge and began the hard work of healing our inner selves. Although the amazing thing with these tools is that it isn’t really hard work because we let the Holy Spirit lead us and we go where he wants us to go. It is not a lot of hard work on our part to try and figure everything out. It is a process of asking the Holy Spirit, Jesus or our Lord the questions and letting them answer them for us. It is pretty remarkable.
This verse goes so well with the theme for this quarter. Inner Healing is all about freedom. It is freedom from our chains that keep holding us down. It is freedom from all the memories that keep us stuck in our past. There could also be people that we have unhealthy attachments to that could be keeping us stuck. All of these things can be barriers for the freedom that Christ wants for us. The verse above says that Freedom is why Christ has set us free. Christ died on the cross to set us free from our sins and yet we still aren’t free when we let all this other stuff weigh us down and trap us.
There are so many ways in which we can let ourselves be burdened by the yoke of slavery. Some ways we bring upon ourselves and some we don’t. We may not even be aware of many things that have to do with inner healing. Many times when something happens to us, we create lies about that situation. We are not aware of these lies, the are formed in our unconscious. These lies start to influence our thinking and our actions even though we aren’t aware of them. I heard an example of this woman who told her mom something about her day when she was younger and her mom yelled at her. The girl didn’t do anything wrong and the mom apologized later. Her mom was having a really bad day and the young girl caught her at a bad time. Even though the mom apologized later and the girl understood that her mom didn’t mean to yell, her daughter’s brain still told herself a lie that “my mom doesn’t want to hear about my day.” Without even realizing it she started to believe this lie and stopped trying to talk to her mom about her day. Do you see how sneaky the enemy is. He just comes in and whispers these lies to us and we start to believe them.
That would be an example of something that happened and we were’t really aware that it had happened. Another example of this would be soul ties. A soul tie is an inordinate attachment we create with another person that limits our freedom. Whenever we give our heart to someone that does not deserve it, that person receives authority over us and we become tied to that person. This could be in a romantic relationship or a friendship, it could also be with a family member. Did you ever feel like you just could not stop thinking about someone, even though you knew they were bad for you? You probably formed a soul time with that person. The good news is that through the power of the name of Jesus, we can break the bonds of our soul times and the Lord can restore authority over our lives. This is another way we can gain freedom.
The past few examples were ways that we might have become burdened by the yoke of slavery without even knowing it. There are also several ways we can knowingly become burdened. One big one of these for me is the stupid television. I would love to say I was free to turn the TV off anytime I want to. However, I don’t think this is true. In theory I can but in reality, I get sucked into the show I am watching and I can’t turn it off. I tell myself I will turn it off after one episode and then I sit there for hours and watch it even though I really want to be doing something else. That is not the freedom that Jesus died on a cross for.
Another way were burden ourselves is by doing something we know could be addictive. The only time you really have a choice if you will use drugs or alcohol or not is at the very beginning. After that you are addicted and you no longer have the freedom to say no. You body needs it, it craves it and although you don’t want to do it anymore you don’t feel you have a choice.
Another example of when we are choosing to give up our freedom is when we choose to indulge in the desires of our flesh. This could be a wide variety of things from eating all the cake we have ever wanted to having an affair. When we choose to do this we are not choosing to live in the freedom that Jesus earned for us. The verse says, "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.” We are told to stand firm in our freedom. This means when we can, we need to choose freedom. Jesus didn’t die for our sins so we could continue to be held captive.
Take a look at your life, all aspects of your life. Are there ways you are allowing yourself to become burdened by the yoke of slavery? What areas of your life have more control over you than you have over them? Does you calendar run your life? Does the TV schedule have more control over you than you would like? Do your children have control over you? Are addictions running your life? I think it is important to look at our lives and see where we are allowing things other than God to be in charge of our life. If we do find areas where we are not free we need to turn these areas over to God and allow Him to come in and take control. I know some of these will be easier than others. I know if you are suffering with an addiction it may seem like there is not able to get control and with your own power, you aren’t. However, with the power of the Holy Spirt you can do all things.
We need to remind ourselves that we are more powerful than our wants and desires. Just because we want something doesn’t mean we have to have it. Just because we feel a strong desire to sit and watch TV doesn’t mean we have to. We have the Holy Spirit living inside of us and that means we have a power that is beyond any power the enemy has to tempt us. We just have to come into agreement with that power and start using it. The enemy wants us to think we are weak and we have to give into our desires and yet it knows we are stronger than that. The enemy knows the power we have inside of us, and yet it just keeps acting as if we don’t have any power at all and we tend to come into agreement with that lie instead of relying on the immense power we have. We are strong and Jesus died so we would be able to live in freedom. Let’s learn to live in that Freedom Jesus wanted for us.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to live in the freedom you want for us. Help bring into light any areas in our life where were are not free. Show us how to become free in those areas. Show us what things need to change in our lives so we can be free and live a free life. We love you Lord and we are grateful you sacrificed you son for our freedom. We are sorry we don’t always live in that freedom. Help us to live that way more and more each day. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!