Freedom is Good News Part 144

In writing these articles I have gone far and wide in considering and studying the word of God.  We have looked at many subjects and have looked into many of the books of the bible.  But I do not want to lose track of the purpose that was established several years ago, and that purpose is that even though we see, in the world around us, things that are quite problematic, the word of God promises good news. 

Having recognized this “good news” of the Kingdom of God some 45 years ago, I do ponder and wonder why so many of the people I meet will have nothing to do with the word of God.  Most of the time, I see that the reason has much to do with a lack of education.  I hope these articles will have some remedial effect on that. 

Others do not seem to have the time to put forth the effort to read and study just how God loves them in their lives today.  I speak the truth when I say that this love of God is the true driving force and creative activity of the good news we seek! 

Many people think that God (if they believe in God) is somewhere afar off and unconcerned about them.  But this could not be farther from the truth.  Ah, truth; isn’t this what we really need in the age in which we live?  Friends, I state unequivocally, the only real, honest and full truth is found in the pages of the bible.  God’s love is real!!

Still others have received incorrect instruction concerning the scriptures and wonder how a good God could allow such problems and to evil exist in this world.  Let me state right here that the bad things that happen on this earth grieve God and fill His heart with pain.  His hand is not here to stop the inebriated person’s car from starting and eventually killing an innocent bystander.  And I believe His heart grieves.  I can answer this seeming dilemma in one word; freedom!  Adam and Eve chose a certain path and it was not a path of freedom but slavery.  And yet God (who “changes not”) still allows us the freedom to go out and get drunk and try to drive home. 

God has now, once again, given us the choice between freedom and slavery.  There are so many instances of God reaching out to His creation with a choice.  And let me lay out my heart right here and state my wish, hope and prayer, “May you, who read these pages, ponder His invitation to freedom.  His true freedom is through His Son Jesus Christ.  In Him we are free.  Free to not sin.  Free to love Him.  Free to walk before Him in true righteousness and holiness.  We all know that freedom is not free and Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice.  He paid the ultimate penalty for us so that we may once again be truly free.

So, how devoted to freedom are you?  Moses posed the question this way, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that you and your children may live, and that you may love the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life.” (Deut. 30:19)  You are free to choose; choose life.  My love to you all!

Freedom is Good News Part 21

Have you ever sat down and just pondered the passage of time?  It is something that is unstoppable for us humans.  It is just one of the many things that have been ordained by God Himself.  Speaking of God ordaining things, I must wonder just what there may be that God has not ordained.  Do you consider God to be in charge of the universe?  I do.  He is the creator and the sustainer of all things.  In the beginning of the bible, the book of Genesis, God tells us that at the end of each day of creation, He pronounced it as good.  And at the end of the sixth day we read, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

But soon after, in chapter 3 of Genesis we see that man (i.e. Adam and Eve) couldn’t even keep one commandment.  Yes, He has graciously given us 10 commandments, but to Adam and Eve He only brought forth one; “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.  They failed the test and that was not good!  I believe we know the rest of the story.  They chose to take upon themselves the knowledge of what was good and what was evil.  And so without God’s guidance in navigating, things went downhill from there.  At this point in scripture God puts the bible on “fast forward” and takes us about 1650 years in two chapters and so we come to Noah’s day.  Genesis 6:5, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The LORD was grieved that He had made man on the earth and His heart was filled with pain.”  My friends, this was not good news.  God grieved and His heart was filled with pain!!  These are strong words that are used for God’s emotions.  Have you ever grieved?  It is not a pleasurable time.  Has your heart ever been filled with pain?  Same comment!

Some have wondered how a good God could allow bad things to happen.  Let me state right here that the bad things that happen on this earth grieve God and fill His heart with pain.  His hand is not here to stop the inebriated person’s car from starting and eventually killing an innocent bystander.  But I believe His heart grieves. 

I can answer this seeming dilemma in one word; freedom!  Adam and Eve chose a certain path and it was not a path of freedom but slavery.  And yet God (who “changes not”) still allows us the freedom to go out and get drunk and try to drive home. 

But God has now, once again, given us His true freedom through His Son Jesus Christ.  In Him we are free.  Free to not sin.  Free to love Him.  Free to walk before Him in true righteousness and holiness.  We all know that freedom is not free and Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice.  He paid the ultimate penalty for us so that we may once again be truly free.

And friends and brethren, that is good news. 

Freedom is Good News Part 4

I guess when I began writing these articles, some time ago, I really had only one goal, one desire, and that was to help you, the reader, to come to a closer relationship with our heavenly Father and with His Son.  I wanted to highlight the joy and the good things that I have felt as I strive to draw near to my God.

I am excited about knowing my God.  I am excited about seeking Him with my whole heart and my whole life and so I wish that others can taste of the good things that God has brought to my life.  It is good sometimes to just speak from the heart, to pour out for all to see, the wonders of His love.  I hope and I pray that my words here on this page will help all to long for a deeper understanding of just how much God wants to be a part of your life.  God’s desire to have you seek Him, to have you come to Him in prayer, to have you spend time with Him in thought and meditation and to have you open up and read His book of love, the bible, really is beyond our comprehension.

A line from a song I enjoy says this, “you’re wanted, you’re precious, you’re the love of His heart and the old rugged cross was for you…”.  I believe that says a lot!  Oh how He wants us to know Him so that He may shower His love upon us whom He has made.  My friends and brethren, do you really know how precious you are in His sight?

And so to pick up on last week’s theme, let me say that our God has desired to give us true freedom.  It is the world, society and Satan that wants to put us in chains of bondage.  The bondage that comes from sin can seem so enticing.  Satan tries to turn things upside down and deceive us into thinking that God’s ways are somehow chains of bondage.  “God doesn’t want us to have any fun” is the broadcast that Satan promotes.  But the truth, that is the truth that sets us free, allows us to experience the depth of joy that only god can provide.  In John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.”  His peace is true peace and His joy is true joy and His love is true love..

I speak here from firsthand experience.  I have known that peace, joy and love.  It is real and it is beyond our measuring by human means.  It is I that slip and fall - not God.  It is I that err and fail - not God.  His ways are perfect.  He is a Father, a parent if you will, like none other.  His love is perfect.  His instruction is perfect.  He is an awesome God.  And He offers us true freedom.

More on this next time.

Freedom is Good News Part 3

Who knew the topic of freedom could be this big?  The answer; I guess God did!!  There are many “threads” that run through the bible weaving a multi-colored tapestry and one of those threads is the concept of freedom.  Last week I mentioned freedom from “the law of sin and death” as Paul stated it in Romans 8:2.  This freedom only comes through choosing Jesus Christ as ones personal Savior.  Oh really! Just what does it mean to have a personal Savior? 

Let me begin to answer by stating that, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  This is probably the most oft quoted scripture.  And many people misread it.  Yes, He gave His Son for the world, but in order to not perish and to have life and thereby to have this freedom we have been talking about, one must do something.  One must believe in this “sacrificial Son of God”.  (A little side note is that this word “perish” comes from a Greek word that means “to destroy fully”.)

You want a personal Savior?  You must believe!  You say you believe in God, good, even the demons believe that and shudder (see James 2:19).  Do we really think we can just pay lip service to the creator of the universe and all will be well with us?  Can we just give a nod and wink of the eye to Him who gives us life itself, who has written the entire DNA code for our bodies and expect life eternal with Him?

No, “belief” as we read it in the bible is much more than that.  The Greek word for belief is “pisteuo” and by definition means, “to be persuaded of; and hence, to place confidence in, to trust; and it signifies reliance upon, not just belief.  It may be translated as ‘commit unto’, or ‘commit unto ones trust’”.

In Romans 4:3 Paul quotes from Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”.  Father Abraham did much more than just believe God existed.  We read in Genesis 22:1 – 19 the most amazing story of how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son as a sign of his commitment of trust in God.  And James writes about this episode in Genesis with these words, “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?  You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did.”  This episode about Abraham’s faith is so much more than just an “Old Testament” story.  This is actually a “forerunner” or a “type” of the Heavenly Father giving His Son as a sacrifice for us. 

So, do you have faith in a personal Savior?  Have you really accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?  Are you “persuaded of” Him?  Have you “placed your confidence in” Him?  Have you found “reliance upon” Him?  Have you committed yourself so as to place your trust in Him?  He gave His life for you, have you given back that life to Him for safekeeping?  A lot of questions here to answer in order to get to the good news of that freedom!!

More on this next time.                                           

Freedom is Good News Part 2

Last time we met, we were discussing the topic of freedom.  We swung from our national freedoms won for us 240 years ago to the freedoms won for us almost 2000 years ago by our Redeemer Jesus Christ.  And those freedoms, the latter ones, are immeasurably more important than the former.

The Good News is that if we have personally come to our Savior and have accepted His blood as a sacrifice for our life, then we have a freedom that is far beyond anything any government could ever promise.  The things of this world, this society, this physical life are subject to certain laws of physics that cannot be changed.  Not wanting to get too deep into the natural laws of science, let me just say that all physical things are subject to the concept of entropy.  In the book of Romans 8:21 the Apostle Paul tells us that the creation itself is in bondage to decay and decay is the result of entropy.  There is no way out, we will all die.  The plants and animals die and new growth takes place and then it too grows old and dies.  The scriptures tell us that it is given to all mankind to die.

So what am I saying?  No manmade government has or will last forever.  All of the world’s empires have crumbled.  But there is one government and only one government that is eternal.  “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders.  And He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.  He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.  The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)

And this is why the freedom given to us through and by the Son of God is immeasurably more important than the transitory freedoms granted through the constitution.

In the Gospel of John chapter 8, Jesus said two things concerning this freedom; “If you hold to my word you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” and “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”.  But what is it that we will be set free from?  “Through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)  You see, Jesus did not set us free from keeping the law, for Paul has already said in Romans 7:12 that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.”  We still find that stealing and coveting etc. are sin.  John in his first letter confirms this when he defines sin for us by stating, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact sin is the transgression of the law.”  (1Jn 3:4)  So again, what is this “law of sin and death” that we have been set free from? 

Simply stated, scripture tells us that the penalty for sin is death; we sin, we deserve to die!  But our freedom from this law is that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and went to the cross for us.  This is a big subject!!

More on this next time.

Freedom is Good News

I do hope that everyone will have a very insightful 4th of July.  Leading up to this day I began to think about the thousands of men and women who shed their blood on the battlefield of the American Revolution some 240 years ago. 

We, today, get caught up in all the celebrations and can forget that this day is a memorial of what our forefathers accomplished in winning freedom from the tyranny of the king of England.  Oh, it is a day to celebrate all right, parades, picnics, cookouts, family reunions and of course the day’s end fireworks celebration.  The victory, of the somewhat rag-tag colonists over the world’s best equipped fighting force, set in motion one of the greatest political experiments on this planet. 

Our nation became a worldwide symbol of freedom and we, today, still stand in the afterglow that made this nation the greatest ever in the history of the world.

I do not believe this to be a circumstantial coincident that somehow just fell into the “laps” of men like, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.  I believe (as did they) that the hand of God was involved.  Excuse me while I quote from the book, “The Thousand Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen, “…they (the framers of the constitution) declared that the formation and adoption of our new system of federal government represented a political achievement unprecedented in human history.  They looked upon it, more over, as an event that was actually ‘influenced, guided and governed’ by the hand of God”.  In my words, “it was a blessing of extreme importance.”

Are you with me on this?  What happened 240 years ago was indeed “Good News”.

But you, like I, have seen the sometimes gradual, sometimes precipitous slide this nation has taken.  We have fallen away from these freedoms that were won for us.

So as I pondered these freedoms won for us through the shedding of blood, my mind swung around to another event that took place almost 2000 years ago to grant to all men freedoms that will never fade, never grow old and can never be taken away.  These freedoms were also won by the shedding of blood, not on a physical battlefield, but on a spiritual one.  They were won by the Son of God as He hung on a cross.  Jesus Christ came to earth to set men free.  He came to redeem us from our sins.  He came and died to set us at liberty.

More on this next time.