Monthly Archives: June 2023

FREEDOM – THE DECEPTION

Christian Life, ,

FREEDOM – THE DECEPTION

False religious systems abound but, for most believers in Jesus, false religions are not a trap to us.

However, the god of this world system, the devil, has pulled off two scams, and we, God’s children, are in danger of falling for either of them.

The first scam, called lawlessness, was already at work in the church in Paul’s day.

Our bodies play a very big part in the bondage we still struggle with in our desire and quest to experience real freedom. Our bodies continue to crave satisfaction from one desire or another.

“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

James 1:13-15 NLT

Two false teachings come from this truth that much of our sin, conceived in our minds through our desires, is done in our bodies. First, some teach that, since our bodies are going to die anyway, what we do with our bodies doesn’t matter.

This idea cuts right across the teaching of Scripture.

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So, you must honour God with your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NLT

Through His death, Jesus has redeemed all of us, body, soul, and spirit. Our bodies are now God’s temple in which He lives by His Spirit. So, it is God’s intention for our bodies to confirm to His will as much as our hearts.

“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT

Paul calls on every believer to give his/her body to God to serve His purposes.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

Romans 12:1 NLT

The second part of this error is equally ridiculous. Some, in Paul’s day, believed that the more they sinned, the more God would be glorified because of His grace.

“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?… We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.”

Romans 6:1-2, 6-7 NLT

The whole idea contradicts the very purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

“Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”

Romans 6:3-4 NLT

Our new lives, in God’s kingdom in the protective boundaries of His Word contained in the New Covenant, are lived in this sinful, corrupted world.

God’s intention is to enable us by His grace to overcome temptation by trusting in Him. Our faith is precious to God. He must test us to ensure that we live by faith in His power at work in us.

This leads me to explain the second, opposite error, which we call “legalism”. Many of God’s so-called children still teach and trust in their own self-effort to make themselves holy. They try to apply some of the laws and practices of the Old Covenant to find acceptance with God.

Christians, for example, celebrate some of the feasts of the Old Covenant, not understanding that Jesus has or will fulfil all of them when He returns. Others try to obey food laws and taboos, or keep certain days “holy” e.g., the Sabbath. Some try to copy prayer rituals described in the Old Testament narrative as a means of gaining victory over the devil.

Believers still confuse the prescriptions of the Old Covenant and God’s mercy and grace in the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant had the specific purpose of teaching God’s people that He is holy and unapproachable because of sin, and the impossibility of satisfying His just requirements by keeping rules. The requirement for acceptance with God was, “Do this and you will live.”

“The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So, God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

Romans 8:3-4 NLT

The New Covenant explicitly reveals God’s complete solution to our sin and all its consequences by sending Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin. Jesus’ death and resurrection has dealt with all our sin, past, present, and future, and its consequences. The operative word is, “Done!”

“God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.”

Romans 5:8-10 NLT

When we trespass into the area of obeying rules to become righteous, we cancel the death of Jesus to forgive our sin, declare us righteous, and make us perfectly acceptable to the Father. We nullify the New Covenant, and we are no longer eligible for God’s mercy and grace.

Paul’s earnest counsel is,

“So, Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

Galatians 5:1-4 NLT

FREEDOM – THE VICTORY

Christian Life, ,

FREEDOM – THE VICTORY

God has changed our status from sinner to righteous, and our realm from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of God over which Jesus rules as Lord. Now we are free to live under His rule and by His power.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

However, we still have the old nature in us as well as God’s likeness, His nature, restored in us. Now there is a war going on in us, the flesh against the Spirit.

“So, I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.”

Galatians 5:16-18 NLT

So, what’s the solution to this ongoing battle between our old and new natures?

Potentially, our old life is dead. We have been given a fresh start, like being born all over again, but with a new disposition – towards God, not against Him. We have been restored to our original status as God’s children. We are no longer His enemies.

“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!… Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.”

1 John 3:1-3 NLT

This new status comes with an obligation to live like God’s children, no longer giving in to the desires, demands, and cravings of our old sinful natures.

“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So, use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”

Romans 6:6-7, 11-14 NLT

“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

Romans 8:12-14 NLT

“Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.“ Colossians 3:10 NLT

This is Paul’s way of saying that we continually have choices to make, our way or God’s way? The Holy Spirit lives in us and leads us by revealing God’s way to us as we have internalised truth from God’s Word.

However, the Spirit gives us power to obey only when we choose to do the right thing. Our new nature becomes stronger when we choose to obey Jesus, weaker when we choose to do our own will. God has provided for every need and situation, but we must appropriate that grace by believing and acting upon His promises.

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.”

2 Peter 1:3-4 NLT

Through Jesus, the Holy Spirit activates every promise when we receive it by faith.

“For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.”

2 Corinthians 1:20 NLT

There is one more obstacle to a life a freedom from sin’s power and its consequence, which are the source of bondage and behaviour patterns that confirm that bondage…

FREEDOM – THE SOLUTION

Gospel, ,

FREEDOM – THE SOLUTION

Sin produces the attitudes, emotions, addictions, and behaviour patterns that medical science loves to diagnose as “disorders”. As long as the consequences of our sin can be given a label, we don’t have to take responsibility for what we are or do. We become victims of our own sinfulness rather than authors of our own bondage.

There is no such thing as self-help that can change us from sinful to righteous.

No one can “counsel” us out of our sin and its consequences. That’s why secular psychologists and psychiatrists are a waste of time and money because they can only offer temporary solutions to a permanent problem. People spend millions on worthless and useless trust in counsellors who only make them poorer but not wiser.

Mental heath institutions are full of sinners held captive by their sin, inextricably bound in unbelief, guilt, shame, and fear and, worst of all, self-pity that drags them into a state of mental and emotional paralysis. Of course, Satan capitalises in these conditions and gleefully holds them in bondage to his terrible deception.

Our old, sinful nature can never be patched up or repaired. No amount of counsel or medication can change our sinful hearts. These ‘solutions’ can only temporarily dull the pain that sin, ours or others, has done to us.

Our old nature must be put to death, killed, so that its power over us can be broken. We need a “heart transplant”, a new heart and a new nature to replace the old. However, we can’t kill our old nature. Someone else must do it for us. How is this possible?

Therefore, our first step in the direction of freedom is to accept the diagnosis they we are hopeless and helpless sinners, to own what we are, and to admit our need for outside help.

This is the place where only God can step in.

God promised His people in the Old Covenant that He would do the heart transplant for them.

“And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.”

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NLT

That’s exactly what He has done! Through Jesus, God killed our old nature by forgiving our sin, removing our guilt, raising our dead spirits to new life, and filling our new hearts with His own precious Holy Spirit.

“So, now, there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

Romans 8:1-4 NLT

“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians 2:4-6 NLT

FREEDOM – THE OBSTACLE

Christian Life, ,

FREEDOM – THE OBSTACLE

Within us humans is the huge roadblock to experiencing real freedom.

Jesus identified sin as the underlying cause of our bondage.

“Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.”

John 8:34 NLT

How does sin enslave us?

First, we must acknowledge that we have the natural inclination to sin from birth, since we are all the descendants of Adam. Even young children don’t need to be taught to sin, which they express in stubborn self-will. That’s what sin is – the determination to do what we want in place of what God wants.

David acknowledged…

“For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.”

Psalms 51:5 NLT

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”

Romans 5:12 NLT

Second, we sin because we want to sin. Sin, to us, is as natural as breathing. Our sin nature enslaves us, so that we can only think and behave within the boundaries of our sinfulness.

“Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

James 1:13-15 NLT

“… Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin… When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.”

Romans 6:19-21 NLT

Third, practising sin increasingly enslaves us so that we can never free ourselves from sin’s clutches. Like an insect caught in a spider’s web, the more we struggle to be free, the tighter we are held in sin’s grip.

” And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway… Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?”

Romans 7:18-19, 24 NLT

Fourth, sin made us God’s enemies. There is no such thing as neutrality or non-alignment in this war. God is righteous – we are sinners, and that sets us against God. We are born God-haters; we hate His Word, mistrust His goodness, and run from His love.

“… You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.”

Colossians 1:21 NLT

Fifth, sin kills us. Sin not only enslave us in this life, it also cuts us off forever from God and all that is good in the life to come.

“And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal Doom…. For the wages of sin is death…”

Romans 6:21, 23 NLT

How can we ever get free from this enslavement to sin that will inevitably lead to eternal separation from God and everything that He is?

“Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?”

Romans 7:24 NLT

BUT GOD…

FREEDOM – THE CONUNDRUM

Christian Life, ,

FREEDOM – THE CONUNDRUM

What is freedom? We all want to be free… free from rules, restrictions, interference, so that we can be “our own person”. Young people believe that true freedom means kicking over the traces, shaking off all restrictions, particularly parental control, doing their own thing with no regard for consequences. 

Our own country’s rot began the day we had our first “democratic” election, celebrated every year as Freedom Day. “Freedom” in this country has become what Israel’s philosophy was in the days of the Judges… everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Trouble is, “It’s a jungle out there!“ Outside the boundaries of protection, without rules and restrictions, life is dangerous, and death awaits the unwary.

Freedom is a myth if it’s life without boundaries that we want. This produces self-indulgence of the worst kind, at the cost of harm to others. Freedom from external restrictions produces the most painful and devastating bondage of the heart and conscience.

Some people believe that we will be free if we know the truth. Free from what? Knowing the truth is all that it is. Knowing the truth will make as little difference to our lives as knowing that the sky is blue.

APPLYING the truth we know is what makes us free.

However, what is the truth and where do we find truth? In today’s world, objective truth has become “my truth”, that which suits me, but that is confusing because “truth” loses is objectivity and universal application and becomes a “me-thing”, a free-for-all. “My truth” becomes a collision course and is no solution to our search for real freedom.

We can echo the cynical question Pilate asked of Jesus, “What is truth?“ (and he didn’t even wait for an answer).

For truth to be truth, it must be objective, unchanging, and apply to everyone equally and alike. Truth is vitally important for us because it frees us to live with meaning and purpose, and without guilt, shame, or fear. Where can such truth be found?

Jesus gives us the answer, unashamedly, and without fear of contradiction.

“Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.”

John 17:17 NLT

Psalm 119 affirms this conviction…

“The very essence of your words is truth; all your just regulations will stand forever.”

Psalms 119:160 NLT

Since God’s Word claims to be the truth, it must be tested and proved to be true as it claims.

“Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.”

Proverbs 30:5 NLT

Jesus went even further. Not only did He declare God’s Word to be truth, He also claimed to be truth in person because He is God’s Word clothed in flesh.

“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 NLT

God’s Word is the source of all truth, and is made visible through the human Jesus, living His life on earth for us to see as we read His story. We need to read and heed His instructions, and live by them, following His example, if we want to experience real freedom.

“So, the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”

John 1:14 NLT

Jesus made us this offer…

“Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:31-32 NLT

He put His finger on the real issues of bondage and freedom, not freedom from the restrictions and requirements of parents, society, or government, but freedom of heart and conscience from guilt, shame, and fear which are the consequences of disregarding the truth.

Now, if Jesus is the truth in a human, and He is God’s word in the flesh, then what He says works.

BUT….