In Luke 4:18, Jesus Christ said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set the oppressed free.”
The title question above originated from the lessons I have learned from my personal experience with God. And I can say that the answer is yes, we are truly free in the Lord with a special kind of freedom.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve always been the type of Christian who was always on the obedient side. Unfortunately, that was far from the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the Lord and desired to serve Him, but I wasn’t sure I could love and serve Him to the point of being totally committed to Him, meaning to want what He wants whenever and however He wants it. The whole commitment thing sounded scary and too demanding for me.
For instance, there was a time when I was more committed to being religious in the church than developing a true relationship with God. Each time I would pray, I felt God inviting me closer to Him and to take my walk with Him seriously. However, I kept rejecting His invitation because I felt like it would be too much for me to bear. I already felt burdened by all the rules in religion, so it felt as if I would become more of a prisoner by all these demands and would have to walk on eggshells for the rest of my life. So, I rejected God and went about doing my own thing.
It took me about 20 years to understand that I was living my life on repeat. Yes, I know, I’ve won the Nobel Prize for stubbornness! And so, the longer I resisted God, the more the enemy of my soul chained me. And if you were to ask me, I would tell you that at that moment my life felt like hell, though I’ve never been there. It felt like my whole life, my peace, and my joy were stolen from me. Even worse, my sinned-sick soul was slowly dying, and I didn’t even notice it.
However, God, in His grace, has allowed me to realize the kind of imprisonment that my poor decisions had led me to. So finally, I surrendered to Him and His plan for my life.
And it was the lessons I’ve learned from this experience that led me to claim with confidence that we are truly free in God with a special kind of freedom.
Living life God’s way brings love, peace, joy, and an abundant life that surpasses all understanding. Nothing is more fulfilling and relaxing than when God is in charge of your life. When you live life as a kingdom citizen, which is God’s way, it will make you seem weird to others because you are operating under a different government. I remember when I first came to the U.S.A., I was well aware that not only did I look weird, sound weird with my accent, and act weird, but come to think of it, I’ve been weird all my life. Now that I am a citizen of God’s kingdom, my weirdness has gotten even worse. No improvement at all, and I’m okay with that. I guess what I’m trying to say is it is totally Okay to be different for Jesus Christ. Since Jesus will not judge you nor punish you for being different for His name’s sake, then who can dare cast the first stone?
The truth of the matter is, everyone desires the kingdom of God; indeed, they just don’t know it yet, and they just don’t know how to label their longing. Everyone seeks peace, joy, protection, and stability in every area of their lives. For instance, nobody wants to feel anxious about their kids going to school. Most parents experience some anxiety because they want to protect their kids, and they can’t do that while they are at work. Yet the truth is, we cannot even protect them, even when they are in proximity to us. Therefore, all of us would want to be a beneficiary of Psalm 34:7 that says, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them,” and Psalm 91:11 that says, “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” I mean, who wouldn’t want that kind of protection? And these are the very things that God wants to give us in life. However, these promises are for those who fear Him and those who say that the Lord is their refuge and make the Most High their dwelling. Therefore, we don’t have to live life the way we think. The things that bring us love, joy, and peace, God is willing to give to us. the kind of love, peace, and joy that you won’t find anywhere else except in the kingdom of God, reserved for those who are under Christ’s jurisdiction.
Little did I know, and in my own cleverness, I thought God’s plan for my life was nothing but an imprisonment. However, I was completely wrong. It turned out that His plan for my life was actually everything I was looking for. I was trying and literally striving to find at least a morsel of peace in my life, not knowing that the kind of peace that I truly needed was the one that Jesus offers. Receiving that inner peace didn’t stop the chaos, but it surely showed me how to manage and be at peace with my surroundings. In other words, yes, I still have problems because the world is broken, but they no longer have me because they cannot get to me since I’m now under a different authority from a different place.
Another way to look at it is that God gives us a wrapped gift, and it is up to us to accept it first, then unwrap it to receive all the good treasures. Otherwise, it is easy to misunderstand God’s gifts and grace. God’s treasures have often seemed too good to be true. They are so good that they tend to make us think that it might be a setup, as if God has some ulterior motives. However, God truly wants to bless us, and what’s best for us.
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to Me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest.” Jesus is aware that we are crushed with the cares of life, so He offers the solution. And in Matthew 11:30, He says, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” He is letting us know that He has a better way for us. However, we will need to partner with Him to get true peace, rest, joy, and freedom that we all desire.
God’s precepts are not there because He wants to make our lives miserable and to cause us to regret the day we were born, and His instructions are not there because He is such a dictator and wants to take away our free will and peace. It is the enemy who wants to kill, steal, destroy, and keep us bound. God’s instructions are for our protection. If we examine our wrong perception of God, that is, Him being a dictator God or a God with no mercy, we will see that this perception of Him is far from the truth. For example, how many of us, with me being the first one, have made some terrible mistakes in life, that we know that God should not have bothered waking us up the next day? Yet, we are still here. So, if God were such a dictator and unmerciful, then why does He allow everyone access to His grace and mercy? These things we benefit from Him every single day; we have no business receiving from Him.
Therefore, God’s supremacy over all is not to enslave His people but to protect them from the slavery of sin, which leads to eternal death. God’s rulership guides us on a path that leads to abundant and eternal life, which is freedom. Thus, we become free when we live a life of obedience to God. I believe this is one of the reasons why in Philippians 2:12-13, Paul invites the believers to “Work out their salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
In conclusion, we live in an era where many, if not all of us, suffer from all kinds of imprisonment, such as physical, mental, verbal, social, and even spiritual. Therefore, it is essential to understand that we are truly free in the Lord with a special kind of freedom that requires our acceptance of Him and the willingness to partner with Him, which will liberate us from the bondage of sin to the freedom of the soul.
God’s plan for your life is and will always be the best. So, go with His plan!
SCRIPTURES
“But what does Scripture say? Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.” Galatians 4:30-31
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life, and He will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20
Leave a Reply