Freedom in Christ

Have you ever spent time in prison? I have.

As the public information officer for the territorial prison on Guam, I was “inside” every day. Inmates lived in small cells and were physically confined to a few square yards of “life.” They had surrendered their freedom.

Years later, as I sat in a chair and looked around at the small apartment where I stayed, I realized that I had been imprisoned by fear and the lies of the adversary, the Devil. I had plenty of religion, but had practically lost the freedom God gave me in Christ. With the loving help of my heavenly Father, I escaped that prison and now claim my deliverance and freedom to love and serve each day.

God’s Free Gift

When Adam disobeyed God, he lost the spiritual connection that God gave him. Since that time, all people are born with a body and with soul life. Only Jesus Christ was born with sinless blood, and only Jesus Christ always did the will of the Father by his freewill decision. Now anyone who believes on him can enjoy God’s amazing grace through the free gift of His Son. We can reign in life by Jesus Christ!

Romans 5:15-17:
But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one [Adam] many be dead [spiritually], much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.
For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

When we are physically born, we have our earthly father’s seed; our body and soul life is based on that genetic material. When we are born again by confessing Jesus as lord and believing that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), we have God’s spiritual seed within us.

I Peter 1:23:
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Now we have our Father’s nature within us. Colossians 1:27 says it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” All God did for us in Christ gives us the freedom to walk in newness of life by the spirit within us. We are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).

Walking in Freedom with Our Glorious Future

So we walk by the spirit that our heavenly Father has given us. We are no longer under religious laws that confine us. We are free from the adversary’s victory over Adam and mankind. Jesus Christ is our liberator who gives us freedom in this life, and eternal life with the Father.

Romans 8:1,2:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

As we make the freewill decision to walk by the spirit, we prove our sonship and have intimate fellowship with our heavenly Father. As heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, we faithfully endure the challenges in this life and don’t allow Satan, the adversary, to box us in to a “prison cell” of fear. We move ahead each day, knowing that we absolutely will be glorified together in the future. When Christ returns for us, we will have a new body, “fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21; I Thessalonians 4:13-18; I Corinthians 15:51-54).

Romans 8:14-17:
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption [sonship], whereby we cry, Abba [“Daddy”], Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

The sufferings we endure in this life are nothing compared to the glory that we will have when Christ comes back for us. We will be delivered, made free, from the bondage of corruption that comes with our body and soul nature. All creation is anticipating the glorious liberty we will manifest as the children of God.

Romans 8:18-21:
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Walking in Freedom with Our Father’s Sufficiency

But what about now? How do we claim the freedom that is ours? We simply trust in what God has done for us in Christ. We don’t walk by the “flesh” (our limited five senses), but by the spirit that we have within. Our spiritual freedom is recorded in those epistles addressed to the Church (Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians). So we read, believe, and act on those truths. Our sufficiency is of God, who made us His able ministers, through Jesus Christ our lord and savior.

II Corinthians 3:4-6,17:
And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

God is the Spirit (John 4:24) Who gives His gift of holy spirit. That gift is the “spirit of the Lord.” God, by way of His Son, Jesus Christ our lord, is the only source of true liberty. John 8:36 says: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” The Aramaic reads: “If then the son free you, you will truly be free men.”

Walking in Freedom with Loving, Fruitful Service

Once we have escaped the adversary’s prison cell, he will try to get us to walk back in and live there. We refuse to go back to his limited and fear-filled way of life. We stand fast in the liberty we have in our victorious liberator, Jesus Christ!

Galatians 5:1:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Now that we have the freedom to go wherever we choose, we don’t limit ourselves to our five-senses understanding. In thankfulness for the freedom we have in Christ, we lovingly serve others with this precious liberty that God gave us by the costly death of His Son. Like Jesus Christ, we decide each moment to walk by the spirit.

Galatians 5:13,16:
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

As sons of the Living God, we have His nature in us; and we will see fruit that allows us to enjoy our freedom. We live and walk in the spirit.

Galatians 5:22,23,35:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

In Christ, you are free to live, free to love, free to serve. You have joy and peace. You are longsuffering of others and kind to those you are with. People see your goodness and believing in your daily actions. Your meekness to God is evident in your disciplined life of loving service.

There is “no law” against living that way. We have escaped from the prisons of fear and corruption and can walk with joy, anticipating the glorious future that awaits us. We are free indeed!