Jesus set me Free!?

The most misunderstood of all Christian traditions is that we have been set free and have liberty (which I do believe we have). However, some folks seem to think that we have been set free to do exactly as we please, but I put it to these people that this is merely bondage under another guise! When Jesus set us free by His death on the cross He set us free from the heavy burden of the law and legalism of the Old Testament and gave us a new and better (lighter) burden, and this is the “burden” of being set free to operate within the sphere of LOVE!

I like to make a comparison with the laws of the road that we are under whenever we take to the road in a motor vehicle. We drive at a speed limit of 60km per hour in a built up area because the law says that we should, and this also happens to be a safe speed to travel in areas where there are pedestrians, children, senior citizens, buses, taxis, pets etc.

Now imagine that somebody in power takes down the signs and says that from now on we should drive according to love and our own conscience. Oh dear! But this is the very situation that every Christian finds him/her self in. Galatians 5:14 says: “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." So from now on we should drive at or below the speed limit simply because it’s the loving thing to do. To break the speed limit would endanger others and ultimately could kill someone.

When next we are faced with a potentially tricky situation the question we should ask ourselves is this: would this action harm someone else or me in any way? If the answer is yes then that action is sin.

Once we boil this down a bit we find that when we are ruled by love we will no longer steal from our neighbour, covet our neighbours stuff, give false testimony, be disrespectful to our parents, commit adultery… sound familiar? But this time God in His wisdom has chosen to give us the freedom to do the right thing because we want to, and also the freedom to fail once in a while. And when we fail we have the freedom to repent, and ask God to forgive us and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and remember them no more! (1John 1:9) Now that is true freedom!

The law on the other hand prescribes punishment and condemnation.

So which would you rather have? God’s love and freedom to choose to do right, or the unrelenting iron hand of the law? To me the choice is simple.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 5:1