Jesus gave up His life, so we can be set free and live as free people. If we are going to remain free, we need to fight for our freedom and not allow ourselves to get entangled with carnality, which leads to a yoke of bondage again. The scriptures give us insight on how to keep ourselves free.
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. Galatians 5:1 (NKJV)
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It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? Galatians 5: 13-18 (Message)
When we think we can live an unrestrained life because we are free, we walk right into another form of bondage. By the grace of God, our freedom can only be maintained when we respect, honor, and obey God’s instructions to keep ourselves free from bondage.
If we use our freedom to satisfy our nature, we will continue to feed our selfishness and our carnality. There is nothing good that comes out of carnality. When we feed the carnal nature and the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, those desires will continue to grow stronger and demand to be fed. On the other hand, if we deny those lusts and feed the spirit man, then we remain free and a harvest of righteousness awaits us.
Furthermore, the above passage tells us to refrain from backbiting. Instead, we are to love each other. This kind of love is not a natural love. Natural love is dependent on how we feel about a person and whether we are pleased with their behavior. It’s wishy washy, and it is based on our emotions at the moment.
When we are determined to walk in freedom, we continually make the decision to not take the bait of offense because we know it will keep us in bondage. We are motivated to keep our hearts clean, and this allows us to be in freedom in our spirit, mind, and emotions.
Our nature is motivated to hold on to offenses as a way of protecting ourselves from unsafe people. This is coupled with holding onto disappointment about someone, which can keep the person stuck in their negative emotions. Instead of staying away from various “unsafe” people, we should find out what is it that draws us to them in the first place. Then try to address those issues, so we can be free to live in relationship with others without allowing them to control or manipulate us. We should also pray for more discernment about how we choose the people we spend time with and not allow the voices of those around us to veer us in the direction of so called “popular” or “important” people.
Are you in bondage to anything? Are there certain behaviors or habits that you find yourself stuck in? Pray and ask the Lord to help you see the real issues and get to the root of bondage.
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