You are Free

By Colonel Genevera Vincent

I read a story a few years ago about a group of prisoners who after spending time behind prison bars in a dark cell, when they were finally released from the dark prison and stepped outside into the sunlight, they quickly blinked their eyes and turned to walk back into the dark prison.  Freedom was now theirs but the darkness of the prison they had known for so long had become so familiar that the light and freedom they were now privileged to enjoy was a foreign concept and quickly rejected.  I have never forgotten that story and still feel the sadness of the scene when I recall it.  That story is a spiritual picture of those who after being set free by Christ, choose to live in the darkness of their past.  Why is that?  It seems that as humans we very readily become creatures of habit and somehow become comfortable in what we know even when what we know is unhealthy.  This, however, is not God’s intention for his children.  We are called to be free and to flourish in the freedom Christ offers.

Jesus declared in John 8:36 that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  Believing what Jesus has said invites us to leave our own self-made prisons of shame, guilt, and regret and step into the light of Christ freedom and be free indeed!

The Apostle Paul begins Galatians 5 with these words, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” The Galatians were caught in the rigorous demands of the law as a means for gaining God’s favor.  After Paul’s teaching on Salvation through Christ and him alone, the Galatian Christians reverted to their old ways.  They began to treat their Salvation as Christ plus circumcision.  In so doing, they were no longer holding to Paul’s teaching that Christ sacrifice on the cross is enough to save them.  The adding of other things to the work of Christ on the cross negated Christ sacrifice for them and made them prisoners to the law and confused their Christianity and placed them in the bondage of legalism.  

Christ is Enough, is a song that reminds us that:

Christ is my reward

And all of my devotion

Now there’s nothing in this world

That could ever satisfy

Through every trial, my soul will sing

No turning back, I’ve been set free

Christ is enough for me

Christ is enough for me

Everything I need is in You

Everything I need

We sing this song with great gusto but are still often plagued with low self-esteem, and a feeling of never being satisfied.  We often don’t feel we measure up and that we are not good enough and subsequently we live in a prison of self-doubt.  Aren’t you grateful that we don’t have to live like this?When those feelings of imprisonment come, we can quickly remind ourselves of the then and now.  In the past, the then, we were bound and chained by sin and self, but now we are free in Christ!  The chains are broken, and we live and breathe the freedom that Christ offers.  We don’t live our lives always feeling the need to add to what Christ has done for us.  Our lives and our song are a clear declaration that Christ is indeed enough for us.  His love is enough.  His grace is enough.  His mercy is enough.  HE IS ENOUGH!  

I love the opening verses of the book of Ephesians where we are reminded of all that belong to us who are in Christ.  Every spiritual blessing in Christ is ours!  We were chosen, adopted, redeemed and included.  Those words are not words of bondage; they are freedom words.  If you need a reminder today of who you are in Christ, read Ephesians 1 and 2.  Read them with a thankful heart that as a child of God you are free.  Read them with the knowledge that Christ left his Holy Spirit with us to help us live in the freedom we are offered.  As a child of God, we are free.  May God help us flourish in our identity in him!

Be blessed by remembering “Who the Son sets free” – Is free Indeed”