Be Free

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

It's interesting how willing we are to disqualify ourselves. As the Bible says, all sin is equal, whether it be having angry thoughts about someone or killing them. From lying to adultery, there is no "better" sin to commit, no one sin that will get you a lesser sentence. God's kinda fastidious that way. You sin, you're out. Period.

That's where God's forgiveness comes in. Because God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die for all the sins we will ever commit, and that allows God to wash away our sin with Jesus' righteousness. And that means we can rest assured that we are free of that sin.

And yet we are a people of dwellers. We dwell on our sin. We listen to that voice in our ear that says "Sure you want to be a pastor, but you used to watch porn. They'll never accept you." or  "You want to be in leadership? You stole money from your mother's purse when you were 11. You'll never be trustworthy again."

Ok those are random examples, but you get my drift, right? I can say that I personally have many many many (many) sins which get thrown up in my face by the enemy when I want to walk forward with my life and do good things. But it does not do to dwell!

Jesus is the Son in the above verse. Through Him, we are set free from our sin. We need to ask for it, and accept it, but we will receive forgiveness and freedom. Then we just have to walk in it.

Someone said something very interesting in church a few weeks ago, how people up in heaven will be entirely, completely honest. So I can imagine a heaven full of people saying "I killed a man, but God forgave my sins through Christ and here I am!" "I cheated on my 2nd grade test," "I told my mom I was doing homework but we were really having sex" "I lied to my wife when she asked if I was a virgin when we got married" on and on and on... but they will always end with "but I'm free from that because of the blood of the lamb!"

Sometimes I think everyone should go through a 12-step program, because one of the steps is owning up to how you hurt other people. Perhaps if we didn't try so hard to keep all of our sins hidden, we wouldn't dwell on them so much, and we would truly walk in the freedom that God has given us.

Of course that does rather presuppose that we're not committing murder and then telling everyone about it. Let's try step 1: do your best not to sin. Step 2: if you do, confess it to God for His forgiveness. Step 3: accept His forgiveness. Step 4: do not be afraid of sharing it, in the right circumstances, with others, so that it may shore up their own faith.

And then you will truly feel the freedom God has given you.

Now I just need to take my own advice. :)