Living in Freedom


You have no idea what freedom there is in living for Him!  

I am freed from the shackles of performance oriented Christianity. In living for Him there is no more fear of man, for since I am behaving in ways that are God focused all those around me are reaping the harvest of my love for God and my obedience to His Word.

I have little tolerance anymore with the whole "God is displeased with me" theology. It is such bondage to think that way because it leads to living under a cloud of constant condemnation. People who are under such teaching are fearful of God’s punishment for their failures,  they are afraid of being “out of fellowship” with God as they are in the process of progressive sanctification  as though God would be against them for ongoing struggles with sin.

I have great news for you- a true believer can never be “out of fellowship” with God because my fellowship with God never depended on me in the first place!

Before Christ saved us we were all out of fellowship with Him, living in darkness, sons of perdition, and destined for hell. The only thing that changed our present and our future is that God reached down into our pathetic lives and redeemed us.

It was all of Him and nothing of me. 

Was I responsible to respond to His call? Yes, but He even assured that I would respond by His irresistible call on our lives. In the instant that the salvation that Christ bought for me by His blood was completed I was instantly brought into the Light, adopted, redeemed, sanctified, justified, and guaranteed that I will be one day glorified. 

It is so important that you grasp that God’s pleasure rests upon you constantly because of your union with Christ. Since Christ is the only reason for God’s pleasure resting upon you in the first place, what do you think you can add to gain more of God’s pleasure than what He has already done? 

Is Christ sufficient? If your works were not enough to gain you favor with God before, why do you think they will gain you favor with Him now? 

Logic follows that since God is pleased with me only because of Christ, what (if anything) can I do to make Him displeased with me? I maintain that while there are plenty of things I do that God is displeased with; He is no longer ever displeased with me. 

Does this mean that God condones my sin? No. 

Does it mean that sin doesn’t matter to God? NO! Does believing this mean I can sin with wanton abandon and abuse the grace of God?

As Paul said in Romans 6:1, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Certainly not!” What I am saying is that it is still all of Christ and nothing else! In Him my strivings for acceptance by God cease, my works righteousness ceases; it all comes to a screeching halt because when God looks upon the believer all He sees is Jesus Christ, His Beloved Righteous and Perfect Son. 

We are clothed in His righteousness (Romans 5:19) and God has graciously declared the work “finished!” (John 19:30)