We Will Achieve True Freedom When We Live As We Should And Not As We Please Through The Empowerment Of The Holy Spirit Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2 Cor. 3:18) Holy Spirit Rain Down - https://youtube/watch?v=_54ECo6s2M8 Many people in the world today are fighting for freedom. Young people want freedom from the rules set by their parents. Women want freedom from the oppression of men. Some countries want freedom from the rules imposed by other countries. The freedom from civil war and genocide occupies the minds of many of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. While some of the members of the church want the freedom to worship God in whatever way they see fit. In James 1:25 the servant of the Lord said, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Here James states that the perfect law of God gives liberty. We don’t achieve liberty because the negotiations of peace treaties. We don’t achieve liberty from any conflict resolution theories. When we look carefully at the text again liberty doesn’t not come from within us, it comes from outside of us. What does the word liberty mean in the Greek? The Strong’s Concordance says, “True liberty is living as we should not as we please.” So clear the Lord does have a particular way in which He expects his followers to live. We cannot dress and do things any and any way and still expect to have liberty and reflect the image of God. Notice very carefully that James is also saying that doers of the law will have freedom. So how do we get the power to be doers of the Lord? The Bible reminds us that “all our righteousness are as filthy rags.” In 2 Cor. 3:17 Paul provides the answer. He said, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” This morning the Lord is reminding us that in order to get true freedom we must allow the Holy Spirit to take full control of our lives. Through the indwelling Holy Spirit we will become doers of the Law and hence receive freedom from the bondage of sin and death. We are again reminded that the Holy Spirit is the source of our strength and power to overcome the carnal nature. True freedom comes from God not from our possession or positions. I pray that we will continue to allow the Lord to do His work in our lives so that we can experience true freedom in Christ. Human agents are not able to read our hearts, but they can observe our lives, watch our actions, scrutinize our manners, and weigh us in the scales of human judgment. We are made a spectacle unto the world, to angels, and to men. It may seem that we are to study our own hearts, and square our own actions by some standard of our own; but this is not the case. This would but work deform instead of reform. The work must begin in the heart and then the spirit, the words, the expression of the countenance, and the actions of the life, will make manifest that a change has taken place. In knowing Christ through the grace that he has shed forth abundantly, we become changed, and the character is sanctified through belief of the truth. The inward life grows strong, and the entire conduct will be in conformity to the will of God. Humility will be cultivated, because we shall feel our nothingness, and realize our dependence upon God. We shall remember that we have been bought with the price of the blood of the Son of God, and that every faculty of our being must be brought into captivity to Christ, that we may glorify him. In humility we shall correct every fault and defect of character; because Christ is abiding in the heart, we shall be fitted up for the heavenly family above. (The Youth’s Instructor – August 31, 1893 – Ellen G. White) All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart-work with Christ. And if we consent, he will so identify himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to his will, that when obeying him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing his service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us. (Review and Herald, July 14, 1910 – Ellen G. White) The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely--because he is required to do so--will never enter into the joy of obedience. He does not obey. When the requirements of God are accounted a burden because they cut across human inclination, we may know that the life is not a Christian life. True obedience is the outworking of a principle within. It springs from the love of righteousness, the love of the law of God. The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer. This will lead us to do right because it is right--because right doing is pleasing to God. (Christ’s Objects Lesson, pg. 97, 98 – Ellen G. White)
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 10:43:29 +0000
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