Biblical Freedom

Freedom in Christ is a great privilege that we have as disciples of His. It was something that the early church enjoyed to the utmost, and something we ought to as well today! On the other side of things, the enemy hates the idea of you and I being free in Christ. He has, and will continue to do, everything he can in order to lure us into deceptive thinking about the teaching of biblical freedom. It has been on Satan's agenda to mix the idea of biblical freedom with the prevailing definition of freedom (the ability to do whatever you want without constraint) in the culture of the day. This is certainly no different today - therefore, we need to be careful to guard against this happening in our individual lives.


The Bible has a lot to say about freedom. 2 Cor. 3:17 says "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.", and Galatians 5:1 says that it is "for freedom that Christ set us free", just to name a few.


When considering freedom, we also must understand it's counterpart: bondage (the state of one bound as a slave). Rom. 6 is a great place to identify what freedom in Christ looks like, as well as what bondage to sin looks like. Paul sums it up nicely in verse 16 where he says that "you are slaves of the one whom you obey". Earlier, in verse 14, he says "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace".


The whole idea of the law and our former position under it is important to understand when considering biblical freedom. I think Paul teaches what it looked like incredibly clearly in Rom. 7:4-6.

"Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that with held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit."

These scriptures point to the fact that in Christ, we are no longer under the bondage of the law, but rather serve under grace in the new life of the Spirit. What I find interesting looking at these passages is that this idea of "bondage" is not necessarily a negative word. It actually becomes a positive word when we are bound to the right thing. Therefore, biblical freedom has everything to do with what we are bound to. What I have come to is this: I would rather be bound under that which is free (Christ, grace, the Spirit of God), then free under that which is bound (Sin, law).


What I mean by this is that as a disciple of Jesus I now choose to serve Him; AKA in my freedom, I choose bondage to Christ (Paul would say multiple times throughout His letters that he is a "bondservant of Christ Jesus").


Here are a few other scriptures that confirm these things:

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." (Gal. 5:13)

"Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." (1 Pet. 2:16)

What I hope you walk away with is this: biblical freedom is not freedom to do whatever we want with our lives; biblical freedom is freedom to serve God with all of our lives. When we make this distinction, we can enjoy to the utmost the freedom Christ has given us - just like the early church!


Be Blessed!
Andrew

Confession of Truth

Lately, the biblical practice of confession has been lighting up inside me. I want to share a few things that I have learned and come to embrace over the past few months that have been changing my life – and hopefully they will encourage you as well.

Note: The Greek word for confess is homologeo, and it simply means to “speak the same as”.

The term “confession” usually is associated with the practice of confessing sin. This is certainly not a bad thing as confessing sin comes packaged with a glorious promise from God (1 John 1:9)! Praise God for giving us this spiritual weapon that exposes any darkness that may be found in us with His purifying light! What I have come to realize, however, is that confession of sin is just one side of biblical confession. The other, much more neglected side, is the confession of truth.

Romans 10 is the clearest picture of this truth when it says “..⁸‘the Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Upon study of this particular scripture a few conclusions I have come to are as follows:

1.     Faith isn’t faith unless it is vocal.

2.     Confession of Christ (Truth) is crucial to both our justification and our sanctification.

Jesus Himself reveals the connection between the heart and the mouth in Matt. 12:34 where He says that “out of the abundance of your heart the mouth speaks.” He is saying that what comes out of our mouths is the indication of what is found in our hearts. Basically, the words that come out of your mouth give evidence to what God already knows is dwelling in abundance in your heart. I don’t know about you, but I want the fruit of my lips to indicate truth in my inward being (Ps. 51:6)!

A few other thoughts I have come to while meditating and studying this theme of confessing truth:

            1. As we confess the Word of God more and more, we will actually have to confess sin less and less.

            2. Confession of sin brings victory in the moment, while confession of truth will bring consistent victory over a                 lifetime.

            3. We live today (in the present) in the fruit of what we said yesterday (in the past) (Pv. 18:21; Js. 3:6).

            4. All throughout scripture, what we believe is strongly connected with our words (Mk. 11:22-24, Mt. 12:34, 2                  Cor. 4:13).

The most practical way to implement the confession of truth in your life today is to begin to speak back to God any truth in His Word. Maybe start with some of the promises He has for you!

Be Blessed!

Andrew

The Knowledge of God and the Role of Faith

This past Wednesday night I had the awesome privilege to kick-off our "Identity in Christ" series at Cornerstone Campus Ministries. The message was entitled "Displacing Ignorance with the Life of God".


NOTE: If you live in the area and are free on Wednesday nights at 7pm, I would strongly encourage you to come as I believe you will be both encouraged and strengthened in the truth about who you are in Christ - a topic we all need more understanding on!


I just want to repeat a few of the key things I taught through the other night, and then make a few comments that I hopefully will bring home the message. The passage I referred to often during that teaching was Ephesians 4:17-24. I would strongly encourage meditation on this particular scripture in light of the gulf that exists between our positional identity in Christ and our day-to-day experience of it.


Ignorance is the primary enemy of walking day-by-day in the fulness of your identity in Christ.


The Knowledge of God is central to everything in life. Yes, God has chosen to reveal Himself through a number of ways - but He has chosen to do so primarily through His Word. The Word of God is the lens through which we see God rightly. This is important when considering our identity in Christ, because to the degree that we see God rightly we will see ourselves rightly. It cannot work any other way. As long as we walk in ignorance of the knowledge of God, we will be "alienated [separated] from the life of God"(Eph. 4:18). If you have never realized the importance of the Word of God, I hope you are beginning to see it now! It is essential to our life with Christ. (Mt. 4:4, Lk. 4:4)


The Knowledge of God will displace ignorance in us. Faith will bring the life of God into our day-to-day experience.


Faith is crucial to receiving your identity in Christ. To be sure, faith cannot earn something, rather faith receives something (it operates where a gift is present). Christ died for you to freely receive the gift of His life. Faith describes what freely receiving looks like. Through faith, we exchange our life (which was worth nothing because of our sin) for the life of God (which has infinite worth because of Christ's righteousness).


Faith is also crucial in living according to your identity in Christ - to live in the fulness of the life of God. Hebrews 11:6 actually says that "without faith it is impossible to please God." This is important to understand because God wants us to relate to Him every moment of every day - to do so requires faith. Faith brings unseen realities into the realm of our experience. For example, God says "do not be anxious about anything.. but let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God.. will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6,7 paraphrased). By faith we make our requests known to God instead of being anxious about them, and by faith we can actually experience the peace of God where anxiety would have been. Our faith is not based on our experience, but it most certainly helps it! The whole concept of faith was never meant to be complicated.


Faith brings the factual knowledge of God into our experience. It is the bridge that connects spiritual truths that cannot be seen or measured, to our everyday experience. Faith is the avenue through which the life of God is released into my life, and it is available this very moment for all of us who are in Christ!


In light of Paul's warning to the Ephesians, I'm going to go hard after the knowledge of God in His Word, and I am going to walk by faith in order to experience all that God has for me! Will you join me?


Be Blessed!
Andrew

The Abundant Life

In John 10:10, Jesus declares that He came that we "may have life and have it abundantly". It is God's desire that we would not simply live, but that we would live abundantly.

The word "abundantly" in the greek is Perissos, and it means (in the simplest terms) over and above/more than necessary. Basically, what God desires for us is that our life would have a marked distinction from the world around us - a distinction that would cause others not only to take notice (Acts 17:6), but actually begin to long for it themselves. If we want to become relevant to the people around us, we actually need to become detached from the culture we live in and begin to walk in the Kingdom culture that Jesus modeled for us while He was on the earth, and has empowered us for today.  

Once someone begins to long for something, they will go to someone who has it. It is interesting to me that when Jesus was on the earth, whenever people wanted something it seems that they came to Him. Now to be sure, if you want something you wouldn't go to someone who doesn't have what you are looking for - rather you would go to someone who has the thing you are after (because people can only give what they have). What is also interesting is that Jesus (the one who had no place to lay His head - Lk. 9:58) actually met the needs of anyone who was genuinely seeking Him. So awesome!

As I have meditated on the abundant life I have come to realize a few things: The responsibility behind us living in abundance is to bring others along (Mk. 2:14). And the privilege of living in abundance is found in the blessing of giving that others would become rich (2 Cor. 8:9).

The abundant life is not only abundant in it's receiving, but also in it's giving and serving. It can be compared to "overflow", in which the continual pouring in actually necessitates a continual pouring out. Learning to live in the abundance that God purposes for our lives requires that we understand the "freeness" of the kingdom - in which we freely receive from God what He wants us to have, and we also freely give what we have for His glory (Mt. 10:8b).

Know this: regardless of the material possessions you have, in Christ you are rich beyond imagination (Rev. 2:9). And because you are rich in Christ, you have the means to make others rich in Him as well - all it takes is an understanding of the abundant life and then living from the place of overflow.


Here's a few questions that I ask myself:
*What areas of my life am I not receiving freely the abundance God has for me?
*What are the areas in my life that I am freely receiving God's abundance, but need to steward better in freely giving it?

Be Blessed!

Andrew

Let's Go!

I have been encouraged by a number of Godly men to start writing more, so I have decided to give it a shot.


The way I write - really slowly - is pretty much the exact opposite of the way I oftentimes talk - at a pretty good clip! Therefore, it is my goal to actually give some quality time to making sure I put up thoughts that are worthy to be read. I hope that the things I write come across as genuine and follow on the heals of sincere meditation on the Word of God. 


A word about the title of the blog ("..Firmly Fixed in the Heavens"): The title comes from Ps. 119:89. The full verse reads "Forever, O Lord, Your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens." Thats an encouraging thing - to know that God's Word is sure and worthy to be trusted. And because of this, I want His Word to also be firmly fixed in my heart, producing a life of overflow that would bring the Kingdom of God through my life. The indwelling Holy Spirit makes this 100% possible for any of us who are in Christ - all it takes is a moment by moment willingness on our part. It's called walking by Faith.


Thanks in advance for reading anything I write. Please feel free to respond to any of my posts - I look forward to any comments that you have.


Be Blessed!
Andrew