Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. – 2 Corinthians 3:17
Happy Fourth of July! For many, this holiday means cookouts, fireworks, and parades, but it’s also about celebrating our nation’s independence. We spent a lot of time learning about the American Revolution in school, so it’s only fair to get to have a party ever year to celebrate it, right? But the freedom we enjoy as Americans is something we often take for granted.
You know what else we take for granted? Our freedom from sin.
You see, blood bought both. Our forefathers didn’t just write the Declaration of Independence and call it a day, they fought for it and paid with the blood of their countrymen. There was sacrifice involved. Some sacrificed their lives, and others sacrificed time with their families. That’s a sacrifice that’s still being paid today by our men and women in uniform.
If you think I’m headed next to Christ’s sacrifice, you’re right, but let me first make a pit stop in the Old Testament. Men and women were required to make sacrifices to atone for their sins, taking a lamb without blemish. They also had to live according to the law, atoning for any offenses. But then Christ came, and He was the ultimate sacrifice, ushering in the grace age. Christ’s blood bought our freedom from sin.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. – Romans 8:2
But just as we take our nation’s freedom for granted, so we also take our freedom in Christ for granted. We tend to hit two extremes. We either act like we’re still in bondage and carry the weight of our sin, punishing ourselves at every turn, or we act like we can do anything just because we’re saved because we know God will forgive us at the end of the day.
But it’s not supposed to be that way.
I mentioned living however you want in the post 5 Common Pitfalls of Christians, so I’ll discuss the first point: living in bondage to sin.
When Christ died for our sins, He knew everything about us. He knew our past before we even had one, yet He died for us anyway. No sin is too great and no past is too lurid. And His blood doesn’t just cover every sin before we’re saved, it covers all the sins after, too.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. – John 8:36
Sometimes we act as if we have to somehow atone for our sin, but Christ already took care of that. Nothing we do could ever make us clean. The law shows us that no one can live a sin-free life, and every time someone broke God’s law, they had to make a sacrifice because none of the sacrifices were large enough to completely atone. But Christ’s sacrifice WAS large enough. We don’t have to keep fighting this war anymore. God won it a long time ago.
When we mess up, and we inevitably will, and we ask God’s forgiveness, He gives it to us with no strings attached. And while that doesn’t mean we can live however we want, it does mean that when we mess up, He offers us grace and a chance to try and do better.
And that in itself is a special kind of freedom.
