Called to Be Free

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.

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.

You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5: 1-14 (select verses) NLT

Father of Freedom!
Today, I gratefully claim the generous gift of freedom You’ve given me in Jesus. With Your help, I will stand firm and never again be tied and bound to out-dated, man-made, rule-keeping religious systems. I am FOREVER FREE! Hallelujah!

Forgive me for all the times I have fallen away from Your amazing grace! Forgetting the exorbitant price You paid for my pardon, I accidentally allow my plans and projects to isolate me from Your love. Obligated to them, they control my time, talent and treasure. Before I know it, I’m buried beneath busyness, involuntarily imprisoned by persistent practices and polished performances. Suddenly and subtly, I find myself separated from You, caught up in the ridiculous rat race where the pace is set by the world, and the only reward is exhaustion and entrapment. Distracted and deceived, I’ve mistakenly taken a dangerous detour.

Please dear Lord, help me to get back on track! I want to chase after You with all my heart, running the race of my life. The course is clearly set in Your Word, the Holy Bible. Following it, I will voluntarily lay aside my preconceived plans and projects to radically love others, winning the promised grand prize of exhilarating life and amazing freedom.

Thank You for repeatedly showing me that outward appearances are inconsequential. The more important matter is the inward shape of my heart expressing itself externally in the form of love. Please show me who I can love today and I will obey for the glory of Your name that has set me forever free. Amen.

You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. Claim your promised freedom today! God is calling you to get free from the rat race once and for all. Run the race of your life, following the predetermined course set in God’s Word. Then, instead of bound by rules and regulations you will be truly free to love.

“Many contemporary churches operate in this system of guilt. When our people are crying out for communion and rest, we ask them to teach another Sunday School class. When they falter under the load, we admonish them with Scriptures on serving others. One wonders what would happen if all activity motivated by this type of guilt were to cease for six months. Much of organized Christianity would collapse even as the Pharisees saw happen to their own religious system. As Jesus talked about thirst and rest, He brought people to the reality of their heart.

It is impossible to live the spiritual life in the ontological lightness of doing because our hearts and minds become enemies rather than allies. Neither are free to love or serve. The problem is not that people are not important enough to us. It is that they are too important – we need their approval too much.

But what if we are to listen to our hearts, and hear it as a need to faint, a need to lay down our “doings’ and simply make our needs known to Christ and rest in him?”

Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance