It Starts Small

I have been sharing a portion of amazing truth I have learned. The answer to what it means to be liberated by Christ. What does liberty mean? When we are saved and receive Christ as our Savior, we are liberated from legalism and criticism. There is one more liberation we are given.

³ Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: Galatians 4:3

You really have to read the entire passage. There were some who believed in astrology. Astrology means the word of the stars. They believed in fatalism. Their entire lives were governed by the day, week, time, and year according to the stars. There is another word we should remove from our vocabulary as CHristians: disaster. DId you know “aster” means stars, so dis-aster means the stars were not right. Our lives are not a disaster.

There is no disaster. Everytime we say say I had a disaster, we are saying fate caused our suffering and pain and ruin. There is no fate in the Christian life because we stand on God ruling and in complete control, not the stars.

²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

ALL things work for good to them that love God. God is God. We are not victims of fate. You are not who you are because of fate. You are who you are because of the grace of God and it is that grace that sets us free from legalism, criticism, and fatalism.

Legalism = slavery to yourself
Criticism = slavery to others
Fatalism = slavery to circumstance

God’s grace sets us free from all of this. How does it work? How does God set us free?

Here in America, we symbolize the statue of liberty as a symbol of freedom. The cross is our statue of liberty. The cross tells us of our freedom. The cross sets us free from legalism because every demand of the law was paid for with the precious blood of Christ. Christ was our blood remission. The cross sets us free from criticism, because while people can criticize me, I know who I am and Jesus loves me enough that he died for me. The cross sets me free from fatalism because I was in the mind and heart of God before this world was ever created.

The cross sets us free, BUT how does it set us free?

execution

²⁰ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Our life is executed! I am crucified with Christ on the cross. Jesus died for me, but when he died, i died with him. His death had my name on it. Jesus did not just take my sin to the cross, he took me to the cross with him. I died with Him. Our problem is not what we do. Our problem is who we are. The consequences of sin are death. My sin sin demanded blood remission. Jesus paid that blood remission for me.

exchanged

I live, but not as myself. I rose with him on that third day. The law no longer can demand me to pay this debt. The penalty for sin was paid by Jesus.

A read somewhere a really good explanation of this. Suppose I killed a man and was sentenced to death. I am put to death and declared dead. Can the law ask anymore of me? I paid for my crime by dying. Lets say a miracle happens and I come back to life. Can the law ask anything of me then? No, it can not because the penalty of my crime was death. I died. This is what it means to be dead with Christ and rise in Christ. Christ paid for and served my death sentence. He died, I died with him. He rose, and I rose with him.

I now have a NEW life IN Christ.

energized

The life I now live is by faith OF the Son of God. Not faith IN, but the faith OF Jesus! Jesus inhabits my humanity. His faith is now in me. His life is in me.

I have not been much of a person who ever believed in things such as fate. I never truly believed in my heart that this was it. “It is what it is,” was a saying I never really agreed with. Something inside me always knew there was more that “this.” There had to be more to life. I am not talking about riches, fame, or fortune. Right now is not the end, the final this is it moment. This moment is not how it will always be. We can find ourselves in ruin, and that ruin does not define today or tomorrow. Only Christ in us defines our lives if we allow him to.

Liberty in Christ is a heavy topic. I am certain there is even more greater things to understand, but these three things helped me to define and shape who Christ is in me. I could not quite understand what that meant when it was spoken. I did not understand the deeper idea of freedom in Christ.