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Slave or Freedman?

Romans 6:6-7 tells us we are no longer slaves to our sins, our slavery ended when Christ died on the cross and we surrendered our life to Him. The difference between a salve and servant is free will. A slave has no choice in obedience, a servant chooses who and when he will serve and obey his chosen master. The book of Joshua tells us that we must make a choice in who (what) we will serve, and if we choose the Lord, we must serve him in all sincerity and truth.

14 "Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! 15And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." – Joshua 24:14-15 (NKJV)

If we truly have a choice, why do we feel like we have no choice at times? It is because of deception. Not only does the enemy deceive the saints (all Christians), our flesh also deceives us. The bible talks about how hard change is, but our flesh makes us believe deliverance should always be pain-free. IT’S NOT!!! In order to change, we first must become disciplined in right choices. Paul says in Hebrews that there is no discipline that does not start with some type pain at the beginning:

“For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].” – Hebrews 12:11 (AMP)

We need to remember Psalm 30:5b when we are going through the pain of change, “Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning." How true that is when we start a hard change. During the day when we are making the hard choices, it is so painful and it seems like it will never end. But then comes the morning when we look back on all the good, right choices we made throughout yesterday, and we are made full of joy. We need to remember that when it gets tough, we will have such great joy tomorrow when we look back on our choices of today.

We need to remember we are no longer slaves to sin under the law, we are instead freedmen. Christ broke our chains of slavery when he took our sins with Him to the cross.

6 We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin. 7 For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men]. –Romans 6:6-7 (AMP)

The law can only condemn the guilty when mistakes are made; it cannot heal or restore righteousness (right-ness) with God (or do anything else). Instead, we need to stand in our freedom, remembering we are freedmen in Christ, choosing to serve a loving and caring God and Father. When we mess up and make a mistake we are free to confess it to Christ, and Him ask for forgiveness, healing and the strength to learn from the mistake. We no longer have to be afraid of the “punishment” that once came under slavery when a mistake was made…We now have the freedom to rejoice in all things and learn from our mistakes. We are free to ask to be made righteous before God, having our sins forgiven. And we are free to walk in the love of Christ Jesus and our Heavenly Father at all times…Even when we are not perfect!

Slaves are punished; cherished servants are loved, trusted and blessed. I CHOOSE to be a servant of Christ.

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Now is the Time

How often do you put off for tomorrow that which the Lord prompts you to do today? "Not very often" you might be saying to yourself, "after all if I know the Lord had told me to do something, I know I need to obey." Right? But is that really the case when it comes to changing our lifestyle bad habits like dieting, exercise, smoking, sleeping, etc? What would you do if the strong desire (urge) to start a diet and exercise program hit you smack in the face right now? Or if you are a smoker, the desire to stop smoking? You would probably do what most of us do; you immediately start planning your new program, which begins "tomorrow" or perhaps "on Monday". The question that remains is what happened to the rest of today or the time between "right now" and later when you start? Why didn’t you start at the moment the Lord put it on your heart?

The Lord showed me that when we "put-off" things He has put on our heart, we are telling Him "not now". He is telling us that His grace is upon us to make the change in our life at that moment to begin, but we choose to delay our obedience. A long time ago the Lord told me that delayed obedience is disobedience…So are you really obeying Him when you wait to obey? After you gave your life to the Lord, did you promise to start your change tomorrow, perhaps because you had a big party that night to go to? This is no different than starting the new change tomorrow.

The Lord gives us grace that is sufficient for today’s “stuff”. Today’s grace is given to help us do those things the Lord puts on our heart today, tomorrow’s grace is for things of tomorrow. When we put-off those things He has told us to do today until tomorrow, we are wasting both today’s grace and tomorrow’s grace. Tomorrow’s grace is not given to do “today’s stuff”.

Stop putting of for tomorrow, that which the Lord has prompted you to do today.

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Our Priceless Privilege

“To know you is to want to know you more.”

This line from the Casting Crowns’ song “To Know You” really hit my heart the other day while worshipping. How many Christians truly know Christ to the point to where they only want to know Him more? Not many would be my guess. I felt in my Spirit that we do not really know Him until we get to this point in our walk, our relationship, our surrender to Him. This song talks about how much we should WANT to know Christ more and that it should be all we want in life.

What is your greatest desire in life? Most of the time we do not slow down long enough to really think this question through, we just answer it with the canned answer we have been taught to give, depending upon who is asking. But why should we answer differently, depending upon who is asking? Have you been taught that a surrendered walk with Christ should be your number one goal, your only true desire…and that everything else is just filler? I know that my real joy comes when I am basking in His presence, worshipping Him without any strings attached. I love the joy and love I feel from Him when I just sit in His presence. When life gets rough or I am just having a bad day, my heart longs for moments when I can just sit still in His presence and get filled back up with His strength and peace.

Paul said that he counts everything that has been a ‘gain’ in his life as loss (detriment) when compared to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7-8).The Amplified bible really gets into the heart of the meaning of this statement:

 

But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ’s sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One),” – Philippians 3:7-8 (AMP)

 

How many Christians consider knowing Christ a “priceless privilege”…If the answer is not ALL, then it is not enough. It needs to be about more than just knowing Him; it needs to be about getting to know Him more and more and more, more deeply and more intimately.

I know we all get busy “living life” and do not believe we have time to get to know Him more. But this is an untrue statement the enemy plants in our minds to keep us from drawing closer to the Lord. Do you make time for your friends, spouse, and/or your children? Why…to get to know them more, right? The same is true about our relationship with the Lord; we need to spend time with Him every day, getting to know Him more. The more time we spend with Him, the more time we will want to spend with Him.

Bible: $50…Gas to go to “church”: $10…Time in prayer: 30 minutes…Knowing Christ: PRICELESS!!!

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