Live As Free People, But ... - Tuesday Praise & Pray (for others) May 14, 2024

When many people give their lives to Christ they often say they feel 'light' afterward. They describe their feeling as something heavy having left them. This is because of the freeing grace that comes from God once a person chooses to be on His team and no longer be the devil's pawn.

God wants every person He created to experience that liberty. That liberty comes from knowing that despite their flaws God loves them and Christ died for their sake. And as they lean into the ways and the word of the Lord, they learn that God will shepherd them even when they mess up because His grace allows for true repentance to bring forgiveness, which then washes sin away.

Some erroneously think that because grace and forgiveness are available, they are free to sin and behave as they like. Their attitude is that they can live as unbelievers and simply repent to get right with God at any time.

However, the word tells us in 1 Peter 2:16 - Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil: live as God's slaves. This scripture teaches that as believers in Christ and His Father, we are free from satan and all the things it previously used to keep us bound. With the death of Christ on the cross, we also died to sin and were set free from death. And one of the reasons why God freely grants all believers the gift of the Holy Spirit is to keep them free. 2 Corinthians 3:17 - Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

​And yet, the scripture also warns us not to allow that liberty to become a cover-up for evil. We can't think that because of grace and its resulting freedom, we can continue to live in sin. Paul confronted this issue in Romans 6:1-2 - What shall we say [to all this]? Should we continue in sin and practice sin as a habit so that [God’s gift of] grace may increase and overflow? Certainly not! How can we, the very ones who died to sin, continue to live in it any longer? (AMP).

Jesus died a painful death to rescue us from sin not to enable us to continue sinning just so we can tap into the grace He paid for with His blood. Instead, we should do as instructed in 1 Peter 2:16 and "live as God's slaves." That means we need to try to be righteous each day. We must aspire to obey God's word and live in accordance with it. We cannot therefore submit to sin and the sin habits that were common in our Before Christ (BC) days.

We have to submit every aspect of ourselves to the Lord as His slaves, knowing that He promises to bring us to an expected and good end. Thus, there will be no disadvantage to letting Him have His way instead of being led by the sinful desires of our flesh.

The Lord is ready and able to help each of us live as His slaves - those fully submitted to Him. We don't have to worry that such submission will result in the abuse and injustice that are trademarks of human slavery. Instead, we should view being God's 'slaves' as a relationship established for our good and to ensure that the devil cannot easily make a mockery of us. And by the grace of Almighty God, we shall serve Him and be richly blessed in the process for that is His promise for all who would submit to Him, IJMN Amen.

PS: Given another commitment the Lord permitted me to attend today, I may not be as responsive as I like to be during today's fellowship. Please forgive me but understand that I will be serving somewhere else at the same time as P&P. I trust the Lord to guide all of us as this is not the first time such has happened and He will enable me to satisfy all my responsibilities well, IJN, Amen.​