Sunday Thoughts: Freedom in Christ

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know that I take my inspiration from multiple sources: sermons at church, Christian podcasts, and devotionals. But this week’s column is a first, because my inspiration was a sales email.

Last year, I ordered a silver cross necklace from a company called Shields of Strength. (I wonder what the New York Times would make of that?) I’m still on the company’s email list, and most of the emails from it are sales announcements. But last week, I got an email with a devotional.

The devotion celebrates some of the freedoms we have in Christ. It’s encouraging to consider these freedoms, especially on those days when it feels like the world is getting us down.

First, the devotion explores our freedom from the consequences of sin.

“You have been transformed!” the email reminds us. “God has empowered you through the indwelling Holy Spirit. You are free from the wages of sin!”

We see reminders of this throughout the New Testament. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” Jesus told His followers in John 8:36.

The Apostle Paul told the church in Rome, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:6-7, ESV).

Paul also told the Galatian church, “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” (Galatians 5:1, NIV).

Second, because of the work of Jesus, we’re free from the legalistic burdens of the old covenant law:

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Romans 7:4-6 (ESV)

But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Galatians 3:13-14 (ESV)

Last but not least, we’re free to serve God and others. The devotion reminds us that “Freedom comes with responsibility.”

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another,” Paul wrote in Galatians 5:13.

“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God,” the Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:16.

“Our freedom means that we are free to love God and to serve him and one another without being enslaved to the ceremonial, cultural, and traditional practices that we tend to graft into our faith,” writes Archbishop Steven Kaziimba of the Church of Uganda. “Christians should carry one another’s burden, be kind to each other, and grow together in the faith.”

Let the freedom that we have in Christ allow you to rest in His goodness. Allow it to lead you to awe and worship. And let it inspire you to serve Him and others.

As believers, we celebrate the ultimate freedom we have in Christ — freedom from sin, legalism, and spiritual bondage. But in today’s world, truth itself is under siege.

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