Governed by God
In Christ we are set free, by the blood of His death, and so we have forgiveness of sins.
– Ephesians 1:7
What governs your life? We have been set free by the blood of Christ. The freedom we have been given has often been taken for granted. If you were to take a survey and ask people what freedom means to them, you would get many different views. Most of those views would either totally leave out Jesus or they would be about people themselves. Freedom has a price. You can see it all around us today. We help to set people free from oppression and we are called aggressors.
Jesus spoke of freedom, but He spoke of freedom that is driven through submission. Through surrender and certainly not by our will, but by His will be done.
God wants us to be free, He has always wanted freedom for us. Read the account in Genesis.
Genesis 1: 26-29
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[b] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.
He gave Adam and Eve that type of freedom, but they got greedy. God’s desire is that we be sons not slaves. He wants us to be governed by love not law. We have law set up by man because we don’t know how to handle freedom. Freedom by one is oppression to another. Think about that for a moment.
One person because of their freedom, takes that freedom, because remember in freedom I get to do what I want to do and in doing that it binds another person or people. Leaders of countries do that so often. Think about it, often freedom divides people. I want it this way because it’s my choice, while another person does it completely different because they want it their way, because they get a choice and then look..you have separation not agreement and there is created a divide or a break in relationship. Sin divides, it separates us from God. It creates a divide. Where there is a divide and bridge is needed. That bridge is forgiveness. How to two people come back together when their relationship has been split because of an argument or an offense? Forgiveness and true forgiveness does not harbor any of the offense that you’ve put behind when you forgive. I.e., I forgive you for stealing my wallet, but I still believe you’re a thief. Thank God He doesn’t think that way of us.
Going back to the Garden when He gave Adam and Eve dominion and then sin came and caused a separation, God looked for a way to get us to come back into agreement with Him so he could give us back our inheritance…Dominion. It’s interesting because we think God took our dominion or inheritance away. Sometimes I think, God didn’t take away our dominion, we let it go because of our sin. We caused the separation. Adam blamed God in the garden. Adam said, “The woman you gave me” and we’ve been blaming God and others for our sins and problems ever since!
Questions to ponder
What governs you?
How do you define freedom?
How do you handle freedom?
How do you handle the laws set up to keep us in line?
Thought for the day!
Jesus act on the cross set us free. His life on earth gave us a pattern for living in freedom. We have the freedom to pray, to love and we have been forgiven from sin. Freedom is not freedom to press our views on others. It is to share our views, to live our life as an example of the one who set us free. Define your view of freedom, then get the Lord’s perspective on what real freedom is and live it, act it and then when asked, say it!
Always remember, He makes it happen, you make it count!
Blessings!
