If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)
By nature, today’s passage of Scripture is one of the hardest to take hold of and appropriate to our hearts. At least it is for me and my heart. To be sure, I am not as free as God intends me to be in the gospel freedom He has died to give to His children.
Often, I let the devil accuse me in spite of the fact that I know there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus. I have a tendency to think the more obedient I am the more God will love me, forgetting the fact that I am already completely loved in Christ no matter what I think, do, or say. That old sin nature that is still alive and well deep inside is busily engaged in trying to keep us all in bondage. And often the tactic is to use the deceitful promises of sin that for a moment, can deliver on their promises, but eventually leave us empty and wanting.
Only when we receive the truth of the gospel freedom we have in Jesus will respond by faith to the emancipation we have been given. This emancipation has two sides – because of our spiritual union with Jesus – we are freed from the penalty, the power, and the pleasures of sin – and we are freed to walk in the newness of life we have been given. Because we are new creatures in Christ, we are set free from the bondage and burden of sin and freed to the beauty and bounty of new life in Christ.
May that dual truth set us all free indeed to live the life Jesus has set us free to live, by grace through faith for the glory of God and the good of others.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 