Freedom

Have you ever noticed how sin compounds itself? Giving yourself over to one "little" sin often causes a complete sinful change in attitude. Sin, as it is so often described, is a cancer. It arises in the heart, infects the mind, and eventually spreads to the soul. It is crippling, destroying all that is good. Love, selflessness, sacrifice, charity, godliness are overrun by the desire for self, the sin of pride. We believe we can do it without God; in essence, we become our own god and worship ourselves as supreme. Our flesh becomes master and we readily submit to its every whim. And it all begins with one's desire to be God, to make our own decisions independent of Him, to decide what is best four ourselves, to be independent. There is no independence from God, but there is freedom, complete freedom in Him. It is in the desire to gain freedom that the great deceiver plants his greatest lie. He tells us that we can only enjoy independence apart from God. So we eat the forbidden fruit and give ourselves over to broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13). In our search for freedom and independence, we become slaves to the very things Satan told us would give the pleasure of freedom. We have become so chained to money, pleasure, sex, comfort, success, and idealism that we are dying in bonds. God, in His divine pleasure, has delivered us from bondage. In Christ, the Creator offers a way to make our way out of slaver back to true freedom. This freedom is obtained through submission. It is the realization that the god of our pride cannot satisfy, in fact those things can only be satisfied in the one true God of the universe. God, through Christ, takes our shackles upon Himself anbd breaks them for us. However, it is only through our willing heart felt submission to the God who created us that we are made free. Allowing God to guide our lives allows us to enjoy the good things He has created because we first enjoy Him.