DAILY DEVOTIONAL – July 4, 2019
“True Freedom”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, You allowed Yourself to be shackled, persecuted, beaten, tortured and crucified so that we would be forgiven and receive the eternal freedom of salvation from sin and death. By Your grace and Spirit Lord, help us to realize we have been set free indeed and to use that freedom to serve and follow You alone. Amen.
Devotional – “True Freedom”
One of the many popular Bible verses that is quoted during Independence Day and that you can see all over social media is Galatians 5:1 which says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
While as Christians we certainly should celebrate and thank God for the freedoms we uniquely enjoy in our country, we should at the same time be very careful not to view the freedoms provided by a nation or government of men as being synonymous with the freedoms that Scripture talks about. Whatever we understand to be political freedom is a very different freedom from the freedom God talks about in His Word.
Take for example in Luke 20 when those Pharisees who considered Christ their enemy tried to trick Him and trap Him by asking whether or not faithful Israelites and Jews should pay taxes. Jesus asked them in response whose image was on the coin. It was Caesar’s image on the coin. So Jesus said “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render to God what is God’s.” Later in Romans 13 God’s Word says that we are to remain subject to and obey the authorities put over us because we know and trust that all authority is from God…even the authorities that are corrupt and even those that persecute us…even those authorities are from God. Clearly, God’s Word makes an important distinction between being free in society and being truly and eternally free from sin, death and the devil by faith in Jesus Christ.
Think about how God worked out salvation for us. He came here, sending His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. Now, Christ was absolutely perfect and righteous in every way. Jesus was and is God. As God said, we all die because of sin…but Jesus was sinless. The only way Christ was going to die for the sins of the world was by submitting Himself to the very sins and sinners He came to save. Christ submitted Himself to the corruption of the religious leaders of Israel and to the corruption of the most powerful Roman government in the world at the time. Yet, even knowing what would happen to Him and what He had to do in obedience to the Father for our salvation, Christ remained absolutely free. Jesus says in John 10, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
Friends, because Christ was perfectly faithful to our God and Father on our behalf and because He died and rose again in our place, you and I can have the same confidence Christ had; the same assurance of ultimate, eternal and everlasting freedom in the presence of God even if we find ourselves imprisoned, persecuted or anything but free in this temporary and earthly life. By grace through faith in Jesus, we can say with our Lord, “The Father loves me because Christ laid down His life and picked it up again for me. My life is in His hands, my freedom is in His hands.” Friends, what Jesus said is also true for you as a believer and follower of Christ. No one can take your life from you. Sure, they may be able to kill your body, but Jesus says in Matthew 10:28-30, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
No one can take your freedom from you. Sure, we can be locked up in prison for our faith, but our freedom exists not in the ability to move about unrestricted in this life. Our true freedom is found in Christ Himself. As Scripture says in Acts 17:28, it is in “Him that we live and move and have our being.” In Christ we are free from the power of the devil and from sin because we are forgiven. In Him we are free from the death sin deserves because Christ rose again on the third day. This is the freedom Scripture talks about; a freedom that transcends and that is more powerful in our hearts and minds than any political freedom we may or may not enjoy in this life.
That being said, this freedom that we have been freely given in Christ is not a freedom from responsibility or a freedom from the righteous expectations of God that we live a holy life and a life worthy of the blessings we have already been given in Christ. In Romans 6 we see the Apostle Paul combating the idea that the grace of God has granted us the freedom to live and do as we please. There were those in Paul’s day, much like in our own culture and society today, that believed God’s grace and His patience in withholding judgement on the whole world meant we can call good what He calls evil and call evil what God said is good. In response to this Paul says, “15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
In other words, Paul is saying that through Jesus Christ God has set us free from sin in order that we would serve and obey God. The salvation of God is the freedom to now be able to serve Him and please Him by obeying His Word and living the life of righteousness and holiness He has called us to and enabled us to live by putting His very Spirit into our hearts through faith in Christ.
The Apostle Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 2:16, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” This freedom given by God, that we would live as slaves to God’s righteousness and have our lives blessed by God, is not a New Testament idea. Going all the way back to the book of Joshua we read in 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
Friends, this 4th of July we absolutely should thank God for our freedoms as Americans, and we should thank Him by celebrating and exercising the true and everlasting freedom He has given us in Christ. How do we celebrate our freedom in Christ? By hearing and obeying God’s Word, by living in accordance with God’s Word and will for our life and by using our freedom to surrender all to Him as Christ surrendered Himself to God on the cross.
Today on July 4th we take a holiday to spend time relaxing, grilling, spending time with friends and family and watching fireworks that remind us of the great cost many men and women have paid to ensure our political freedoms here in America. While we celebrate our independence as a nation and our freedom from earthly oppression and persecution in this country, at least for the present time, let us do so remembering God’s Word in Ephesians 6:12 and the real victory that has been won, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Through Christ’s victorious battle over sin and death we have been given true freedom.
No celebration of our earthly blessings should be louder or come before our daily celebration of the eternal freedom and salvation we most assuredly have because of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice as the only, holy Son of God. Take the time today to celebrate your true hope and salvation my friends, the hope of Jesus’ promise in John 8, “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.”
Thanks for joining me today for another daily devotion in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
