Freedom in Christ

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  Have we thought about what that means?  When we are saved through the blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us.  The Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as the down payment towards the glory that will come.  God lives inside of each of us and promises where He is there will be liberty.  Freedom from law, obligation, striving and sin and death was bought for us by Jesus on the Cross.  Are we living our Christian life in this sort of freedom?  It is life changing if we understand it.  The verses are unbelievably exciting if we are willing to grasp them!

For more, read What Grace Really Means: Freedom!

and Jesus doesn’t Need Our Penance.

Here are 13 Bible Verses to help us understand this gift that God bought for us.

1)  1 Peter 2:16

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

2)  Galatians 5:1-26

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. …

3)  2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

4)  Galatians 4:3-7

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

5)  John 8:32

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

6)  Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

7)  John 8:36

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

8)  Romans 8:2

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

9)  Romans 8:1-4

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

10)  Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

11)  James 1:25

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

12)  Romans 14:1-23

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. …

13)  Galatians 2:4

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery

We are set free!  Are we living in liberty?  If not, what is stopping us?

For more, read What Grace Really Means: Freedom!

and Jesus doesn’t Need Our Penance.