We are Freed From That we Might Be Free To...
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 08:00AM | Post a Comment 
Christ has made us free from the condemnation which belongs to those who are found guilty. Christ has freed us to live as men and women of Grace by His work in our lives. We can not condemn others because we are Christ’s messengers of God’s intent to reconcile the Elect.
We are evidence that Jesus Christ truly is from The Father reclaiming His children in healthy, loving and life-giving relationship. We are evidence that the guilty are redeemed and that the condemnation of our separation from God is removed. As followers of Jesus Christ, purchased by his blood and adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters we are commissioned to carry this Great Salvation to His people.
God in Christ has freed us from sin and death that we might be freed to good works and life. As we follow the Living Christ we are called live as demonstrations of the love He demonstrated through ministry and definitively at Calvary. God through Paul writes in Romans 12:1&2a
Therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (NIV)
Living Sacrificially
We are living sacrifices, completely devoted to God through Faith. The King James Translation says that this is our “reasonable service”. God is saying that to live as sacrifices to God is the minimum expectation for all the redeemed and only an unreasonable person would disagree.
A great many may take issue with the idea of Sacrificial Living, but we are compelled by the witness of Scripture that we are called, even commissioned to live in this way. What could it mean to Live Sacrificially? Is what God asking truly possible and if so, then how is it possible?
It is of no small consequence that God begins a discussion of the Gifts of the Spirit in this chapter. We would miss a great opportunity to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” if we disconnect Sacrificial Living from the presence of the gifts in the Church.
God Frees Us to Think Correctly
We are called first to sacrifice our falsely inflated sense of our value in contrast to others around us. God says to us through Paul,
“For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
The First Sacrifice
The first sacrifice is our inflated egos, which are symptoms of poor self-concepts. We puff up because we are inwardly deflated. We talk big, yet think and live small. There is a blessing in sacrificing our false sense of self. By ridding ourselves of a false self-concept we are empowered to have a proper sense of self aligned with what God says about us.
When we release our pretension we embrace God’s view. Those who have shown themselves unworthy of Love, unworthy of forgiveness, yet worthy of enmity with God and worthy of His condemnation are now by the unilateral act of God; Loved, Forgiven, Adopted and Redeemed.
We were once the most unlovable before a Holy God, and now we are declared a holy people, beloved by The Most High. He has freed us from death and by Grace He has freed us to Love. By this love we are made personal witnesses to His will to transform the hearts and lives of His Elect.
