Freedom in Christ

By: Melissa Daos

Every month of July, on the 4th, we celebrate our nation’s independence and freedom. Getting to live in this great country is a blessing, not to be taken lightly, but it came at a great price, and that’s something that I don’t think we consider often. The fourth is celebrated by everyone gathering for backyard barbecues and setting off fireworks. We often miss the reason for the celebration, which is to honor the thousands upon thousands of men and women who fought to secure the freedom we are privileged to enjoy daily. It is a blessing and a gift to get to live in America and enjoy the many freedoms that we have. But there’s a much greater freedom than living in the US, and that’s freedom from sin when we receive the gift of Salvation. That gift is given to us by no one other than Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

I want to stop and take a moment to address anybody reading this who is not a believer in Christ and encourage you to stay tuned until the end because God has a special message for you. For those of you who have been walking with Jesus for any length of time, this could just be a review, or perhaps God has a special message he wants to deliver to your heart as well. Before we begin, I’d like to take a moment to pray.

Lord, I pray that anybody reading this is blessed by realizing that you invite EVERYONE to walk in the freedom that only You offer through the sacrifice You made on the cross. It’s not restricted to anyone in particular. We can do nothing to be worthy enough to receive this precious gift of salvation that You offer, which frees us of our sin bc of what YOU did on the cross. When we choose to make You our Lord and Savior, that’s when we become truly free. Lord, I pray that during our time together, Your Holy Spirit would speak to anyone reading a special message that you want to deliver to these ladies. Please touch their hearts, maybe for the first time. Maybe it’s a re-awakening for those who do know You. Give them a new message, awaken something in them, and replace any complacency with deep affection and gratitude for you, Jesus.  Lord, we want to always remain fresh and on fire for you. Jesus, may the freedom that we have in you never become something we take for granted; in Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.

Not to make this about my testimony, but just to share a little bit of background, I called myself a Christian for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until I was 36 that I realized I wasn’t one. I didn’t truly know the Lord bc I didn’t know Jesus. I didn’t realize how important that was. It changed everything once I realized how much God loved me and what he did for me. Once I repented of my sins and made him my Lord and Savior, God’s Holy Spirit came and dwelt within me and began to reveal over time how much I was a slave to my sin and how very little freedom I had. So, let’s begin with a piece of scripture.

John 3:16 is plastered all over shirts and coffee, mugs in gift stores and on websites add nauseam. To the point that the depth of what it says has been watered down. So please humor me and let me read it to you again. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

 Let’s take a moment to really let that sink in. God the Father sent his one and only Son, Jesus from heaven to die on the cross to atone or make pardon for our sin. Sounds too impossible to believe, right? Well, honestly, it is. But God is so loving that He made the ultimate sacrifice through his Son Jesus to FREE us of our sins. Notice it says “everyone”. This is an invitation to who? EVERYONE! 

Can we focus on the word perish for a moment? What does that mean? To perish in this context means to be separated from God eternally. If Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12)  and we live without him in our lives, we’re walking in darkness. Walking through darkness makes things a lot harder, doesn’t it? Imagine being out in the woods, walking in complete darkness. It is very likely that you would stumble, fall, hurt yourself, and be prey for any predators. That’s what walking through this life living in sin is like; it’s like walking in darkness in the absence of Jesus, Who is the Light of the world. 

John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

What does the word SIN mean? In Hebrew, it means to “miss the mark”. What mark are we talking about? Well, that means following the law of God or being obedient to God. OK, I just said some words that might seem reallyuncomfortable, like sin and obedience. Let’s talk about the definition of obedience. It means to conform to a law or submit to an authority. Submit might be another uncomfortable word, right? Some of us have not had good experiences with authority in our lives, whether that’s our parents, the law, or authorities, or maybe even a spouse. Some of us have been abused by people whom we were told we could trust and who had authority or power over us. That can make us distrusting and have no interest in respecting or submitting to any authority.

People are going to fail us, but we can’t let human behavior prevent us from having a relationship with God. We tend to project human characteristics onto the Lord. The more we get to know God’s character through His Word, the more we learn that we can trust Him. We learn how much He loves us, and it builds our confidence and faith in Him. When you submit to Jesus, you are turning away from your old life of sin, and He forgives completely. There’s absolutely nothing that you have done that could keep Him from loving you unconditionally. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it kind of is. But that’s because we’re humans, and we’re not capable of this perfect kind of love, but God is.  

For those of you who have known Jesus and have seen Him working in your life, you know and trust God because you have experienced the heart transformation firsthand. You have a powerful testimony about the freedom you now have in Christ that you never had without him. I can speak firsthand about the darkness Jesus rescued me from once I made him my Lord and Savior. 

Colossians 1:13-14 “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness & transformed us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Who purchased our freedom & forgave our sin.” 

Now we’ve talked about what sin means, what it means to live in darkness, and that Jesus is the light that chases away that darkness. But what about that prickly word “obedience”? If we’re talking about freedom, isn’t being obedient the opposite of being free? Not when it’s WILLING! God gives us all a choice to believe in Jesus. Our understanding of how precious of a gift that choice is is an ongoing journey that only gets deeper and richer as we pursue Him and He pursues us. He desires a relationship with us, and He desires us to want a relationship with Him. But God wants our willing obedience or love for Him.  As we experience more of His love and see Him working in our lives, it produces a change inour hearts. It creates a desire to WANT to be obedient. Think about how you want to please someone you love and care about. Like a friend, relative, spouse or parent. Because they love us & we love them, it’s natural to want to please them. It’s no different when we develop a relationship with the Lord. As we read and study His Word, we learn more about what pleases Him and how He wants us to love Him and others above all else. Continuously experiencing His love for us makes it EASY to WANT to be OBEDIENT! It doesn’t feel like a burden or a set of “rules” to follow. As we continue to walk in God’s love for us, we grow closer to Him, and it becomes more natural to walk in step with what He desires for each of us. So the Love He has for us produces the Love we have for Him, which, whether we realize it or not, leads to….obedience. 

God’s Word reminds me and continues to reveal to me how much darkness I was living in before I knew Jesus. Satan wants you to believe that not believing in or serving God is freedom. He’s very good at telling us this lie through various methods. Satan hurdles lies at us all day and night, and it disguises them in a way that can actually make God’s Word, or anyone who won’t support the devil’s lies, seem “hateful.” For decades, he has been chipping away at the family unit and making us women believe we don’t need a man, that marriage is a form of slavery, and that “you can do it on your own.” Scripture has been horribly misused by being taken out of context to twist the Word of God to make it seem like God loves men more than women. Here’s an example of this. 

Ephesians 5:22-24 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. (23) For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.  He is the Savior of his body, the church. (24) As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.” 

Umm what? Submit to your husband? Let a man dominate your life and tell you what to do. That sounds a lot like being enslaved. Hold on, ladies, don’t gloss over verse 23. Look closer; it says, “…as Christ is the head of the church.” Keep reading. “…He is the Savior of his body, the church.” Who is the church? When you become a believer in Christ, you are. We are the body of Christ, and it’s important to understand this. But wait, there’s more!

Ephesians 5:21: “And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

If you read verse 21, it says to “submit to one another..” Why? “..out of reverence for Christ.” God’s Word calls husbands and wives to mutually submit to one another. Not just women bowing down for a man to control them for the rest of their lives. Let’s read the 2 verses the follow what the Bible says about wives submitting to their husbands. 

Ephesians 5:25-26 “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her whole and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s Word.”

Here, God is calling husbands to “…love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” What did Christ do? “He gave up his life for her to make her whole and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s Word.” I can’t even read this without it bringing tears to my eyes. God puts a much heavier command on husbands than He does wives. He calls them to lay down their life for us. That means they can’t be lazy, selfish, unfaithful, uninvolved fathers, unwilling to give up the remote lol. I’m being humorous, but it means giving up “his life” and his desires and putting his wife first. The number one requirement to look for in a man that would fit this description is to believe in Jesus—enough dating and marriage advice. I’m no counselor, but I’ve certainly experienced the pain of being in relationships with nonbelievers who made me feel like submission to a man would be a death sentence.  In contrast, today, I have more freedom because God provided me with a husband who is a believer and a follower of Christ, and he loves me like Christ loves the church. Thank You, Jesus!

So, what’s the overall takeaway? Do we obey God because He demands that we follow His rules and live cold, structured lives just because? No! We know His love for us, and it pierces our hearts and makes us want to live lives that arepleasing to Him. Knowing what Jesus did on the cross changes everything for us. He gave His life for us. He made the ultimate sacrifice to offer you and me freedom from a life of sin. The only thing He asks is that we continually seek Himand love Him. How better to love someone than to show it?  When we show our love by serving the Lord and others, feeling love grows in our hearts. When you forgive because you know you were forgiven even when you were @ your most unloveable, you receive joy and peace. The more we serve, obey, and show our love for Jesus and share his lovewith others, the more we experience FREEDOM in him. 

God wants us to walk in freedom with Him and enjoy living in His Light. God has put it on my heart to encourage my sisters to let go of any sin or stronghold you’re battling that has been nagging and eating at you; give it to Him. Sometimes, when we’ve been Christians for a while, we put this unrealistic pressure on ourselves to no longer wrestle with sin or certain kinds of sin. But as long as we breathe air, we will struggle with sin. Some to greater degrees than others. Don’t let fear or shame enslave you from getting free from whatever you might be struggling with. Give it to God, repent, and be set free from its crushing weight. Let God purify your heart once again, and you can rest in His peace. 

I’d like to return to what I said about anyone who doesn’t know Jesus yet or who is still on the fence about the existence of God. I didn’t forget about you. You may have had some really terrible experiences with people who called themselves Christians, and they’ve hurt you. Or maybe you have a misunderstanding of who God is. Perhaps you’ve formed an opinion of God based on someone else’s false understanding of God. Or maybe you think you’ve lived a life filled with so many wrong turns or done so many horrible things. God could never forgive you, so why even try? If you cry out to Him with a repentant heart and realize you are in need of a Savior, he will forgive, and that’s that! God delights in us, crying out to him for forgiveness to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus and be made righteous through his sacrifice. There is nothing too big, shameful, or embarrassing for God. He doesn’t view it that way. He wants you to turn away from it and turn to HIM! 

1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 

And as always, Ladies,  “arise in health and multiply in wholeness together.”