Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.  For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.

 
 
 

Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

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7-1

Free Indeed

If, then, the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed.
John 8:36

Those whom God sets free are “free indeed”. But being “free indeed” includes being free to return to bondage, if you prefer bondage to the liberty you are given in Christ. Paul pleaded with the Galatians to “stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and do not submit again to a yoke of bondage!” (5:1).

If you are not free to return to sin, you are not really free at all. Before Jesus delivered you from sin, you were bound to commit sin every day. But when you were freed from the dominion of sin by the blood of Christ, you became free to choose to sin, and tragically, many have made that choice (2Pet. 2:22). When you are delivered by the wisdom of God from debt, you are free to fall back into it. When you are healed by the love of God of a broken heart, you are free to return to the misery. When you are healed by the power of God of a disease, you are free to be sick again if you choose to live the kind of life that takes you there. Jesus warned people of this (Jn. 5:14). The freedoms that Christ gives are perfect freedoms, and that means they set people absolutely free – which includes the freedom to choose not to remain free, if you prefer your former sinful, miserable condition.

Many reasons are offered by those who choose bondage. But the truth always is that they do not love the “liberty of the sons of God” and that they are unwilling to bear the responsibilities that come with true liberty.

The freedom of Christ is the freedom to be like Christ, and that means the freedom to love people the way Jesus loved people. That is what those who return to darkness prefer not to do.

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