Yea, Freedom! Shoot off the fireworks! Shout for joy!

But… be careful! Be aware! Be vigilant…

It’s been echoing like fireworks in my mind lately, tugging at my sleeve, demanding my attention—this verse segment that jumped out of 1 Peter 4:3 in my reflective Bible reading:

“For we have spent enough of our past (life)times doing the will of the Gentiles…” (the will of the Gentiles being the will of the earthly-minded, of the flesh-focused, of the world’s way).

And coming right alongside of it to yank at my other sleeve and chime in, this verse:

“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” (Gal 5:1) .

How easy it is just to live casual in freedom won by someone else’s blood and agony! To relax, thoughtless, leave off guarding ourselves, grow all inattentive to our surroundings — and God’s voice — and end up bound and pulled by the world’s towlines, mistaking them for the tugs of our heartstrings.

Asking myself what freedoms I’m forsaking, what lines of this world I might be falling for, I celebrate today the freedom I have in Christ, counting more…

REASONS TO PRAISE HIM

• 300- The LORD gives freedom to prisoners. Psa 146:7
• 301- He sets captives free (Luk 4:18; Is 61:1)
• 302 – He sets at liberty those who are oppressed (Luk 4:18, Is 61:1)
• 303 -Those who abide in His word, His disciples indeed, know the truth, and that truth makes them free (John 8:31-32).
• 304 – If the Son makes someone free, (s)he is and shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)
• (a repeat) – His “perfect law” gives liberty (James 1:25).
• 305- His law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:2).
• 306 – He will deliver the creation itself from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21).
• 307 -Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty (2Cr 3:17).
• 308 – This liberty which we have in Christ Jesus is so great that some (false brethren) come in by stealth, secretly, to spy it out, that they might bring us into bondage (Gal 2:4).
• (a repeat) It is by the law of liberty that we will be judged Jam 2:12

So let me not forget… 

“We have spent enough of our past (life)times doing the will of the Gentiles…” (1 Peter 1:25).

“While they promise… liberty, [false brethren] themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage” 2Pe 2:19         .

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1)

~What strings are likely to sneak up and bind you, tug you and pull you, robbing you of your freedom in Christ? What do you need to safeguard against?

…..

(Numbers above need future adjustment. Some, I think, are repeats.)

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