Slavery or Freedom?

God's timing is always perfect - have you noticed?  July 3rd one of my devotional readings was the very small book of Philemon.  If you are not familiar with it, it is a short letter from Paul to a slave owner named Philemon about a runaway slave named Onesimus.  It is well worth the read.  July 4th is of course our celebration of Independence Day.  What is that you said?  I am confused about slavery and Independence Day?  Not if you are studying our history.  I am grateful to a very popular personality who has been doing a series on our Founding Fathers every Friday.   (Glen Beck)  The very words freedom and equality for all are a theme throughout the documents of our founding.  Those concepts however were found in the New Testament long before 1776.

Galatians 3:28; 4:4-7   3:28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians -- you are one in Christ Jesus. 4:4-7 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.  And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father. Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you. Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves great wealth for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had.  We are equal in God's eyes.  We are his sons and daughters.  We are free and heirs to all that He has in store for us, but do we live our lives that way?

This Independence Day has been more meaningful to me than most due greatly to the rumblings that are being heard throughout this great land.  Things that I have always taken for granted are in perilous danger of disappearing.  I took for granted that the United States would always honor God's command that we stand with Israel and bless them.  Now I am part of a movement that will protect my Jewish brethren when Antisemitism runs rampant in America. I once believed that Congress represented the people, now I am alarmed at how many of the members of Congress serve themselves.  The states' ability to govern themselves because they can be more responsive to their citizens' needs has clearly been undermined in the past year.  My greatest concern is that my freedom to worship and speak about my faith and my God is being curtailed bit by bit.  Freedom? Only if we walk in it and protect it.

My freedom that was bought by the blood of Jesus Christ is mine if I choose to embrace it, walk in it and protect it.  The other side of that coin is that I can claim freedom but walk in slavery to all that I supposedly left behind when I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.  Many of us are guilty of this.  I have truly been awakened these past few days as I consider all that freedom costs when it has been bought by another's sacrifice.  Jesus paid the price for us, once and for all at the Cross, but we can trash that sacrifice by the choices we make everyday.  When we choose position, acceptance, material gain, popularity, success over carrying our cross as a follower of Christ, we show utter disdain for His sacrifice.  Likewise when we trash the heritage of our country, paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of our Founding Fathers and the men and women following them over the centuries, we show utter disregard for this precious commodity called freedom.

My heart is torn by the times I have acted as a slave when Christ made me free.  I fall prostrate before the heavenly throne as even today, I realize that there are too many times I do not walk in the freedom that has been won for me by blood.  2 Peter 2:19  They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. Peter is discussing false teachers in this letter and his passion is fueled by his imprisonment and impending execution.  Consider what your final letter would be to everyone that has been entrusted to you by the Lord.  However the last sentence is the one that is so powerful.  No matter how much someone had paid for our freedom, we are still a slave to whatever (note not whoever) controls us.  Therefore my question to myself - daily - is what am I allowing to control me if it is not the will of God in every way?

These are indeed tumultuous times in which we are living.  Our freedom is being challenged on every front and too many of us are sitting quietly and slowly being chained tighter and tighter.  However, the foundation of our freedom begins with that which Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price.  If we do not begin right there and CHOOSE to honor Him and the laws which He gave us in Holy Scripture, then we are doomed.  There is no way except down - literally.   We have a choice in our lives, in our churches, in our communities to live out the true gospel or some whitewashed form of religion that undermines the very freedoms Christ won for us.  We are called to be radical for Christ,  not conformist who are afraid of being socially outcast if they do as Christ did.  I need to change.  I must change if I desire to be called a disciple of Jesus Christ.  My life must reflect that I will stand until I die for the One that I call my Lord.