Freedom in Christ: A Clarification

COMMENTS

Well, I mentally scratched the “Freedom in Christ” topic off my list and returned to 2 Peter.  I read the same passage for three days, but God didn’t speak.  At that point, I started to wonder if I was supposed to be doing something other than 2 Peter!  Then last night, He spoke.  We’re not yet finished with Freedom in Christ, after all.

NOTES

The Bible teaches us that when we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We are then God’s possession.  Therefore, with the Holy Spirit indwelling us, Satan can’t possess us because we belong to God.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 God talks about what happens when we come to Christ:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

I love the exclamation point at the end of that promise ;-).  When we accept Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, we are no longer who we were before.  We’re new!  I witnessed that in an extraordinary way when my husband became a Christian at the age of 62.  He changed so dramatically that all of us who had known him for years were stunned.  A man doesn’t change that much that quickly unless God has touched his life.

I tell you that in order to make a point.  Sometimes, God works quickly; and a sin we have dealt with is just no longer a temptation to us.  God just removes it, with little or no struggle on our part.  It’s wonderful when God works that way.  However, in His divine wisdom, sometimes He allows us to fight a battle.  Maybe we need the confidence and strength that is developed only in combat with the enemy.  Maybe God has another purpose.  But I suspect that if we each take a close look at our lives, we’ll see that some victories come easily; and some are difficult.

If the battles you fight are just skirmishes, the Spirit has probably overcome your issues relatively easily.  However, sometimes we give Satan a “hold” on us in certain areas of our lives.  This is NOT Satanic possession, but it IS an area of particular weakness—a stronghold and a battleground.  When we face these situations, stronger action must be taken in order to obtain the victory.  This is when we pull out the “tools”, the weapons that we discussed in recent posts.

The important thing to remember is that our victory, whether won easily or with great struggle, is always in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He deserves all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise.  It is through Him and in Him that we are truly free.