We Are Free!

‘Sin is not a disqualification from the things of God. But, rather, sin is an INDICATION of where you must surrender your heart.’ -unknown

When we struggle with a particular temptation we must realize that we have been given the power by God to overcome it. Jesus set us free from the power of sin!  He, however, did not set us free from the ability to sin.  This is for the benefit of our relationship with the Father. We have the opportunity to always choose Him over sin.

Do not let the enemy lie to you and tell you that if you struggle with a particular sin repeatedly, that you can’t overcome it.  I believe that if you continuously face a particular temptation, then that is the Lord prophesying to you that you are not longer its slave (God never tempts, but clearly He allows the temptation to come. And, all things are used for His glory). He is giving grace and opportunity to allow Him to help you through it (part of His relationship with you).

So, we have to look at temptation and ask, ‘What am I giving power to?’  Jesus gave us all authority on earth (power) when He ascended to the Father.

The enemy has no power over us. He merely has the ability to suggest.  That is what He did in the Garden of Eden with Eve.  He suggested.  She considered.

I propose to you that when we consider something, that is the first step in giving it power.  If we consider that we cannot overcome a temptation, then we are beginning to give that temptation power over us.  But, if we consider all that God said about Himself as being true, we are giving Him power in our lives.

I would also like to propose to you that if we spend effort and energy to withstand the temptation (with the focus of not falling into the temptation) that we are empowering the temptation, and therefore also the enemy.  We might be able to overcome it for a time, but at some point our effort and energy will run out and we will be too tired to withstand.  I think this is where so many of us fall into temptations and sins that we know are wrong.  It’s as if we surrender to the temptation so that the fight will stop.

When Jesus died on the cross, the fight stopped!!  Don’t misunderstand me, there is still a battle going on…spiritual warfare is something we must engage in.  But, as Bill Johnson says, ‘We are not fighting FOR victory, but fighting FROM victory.’

It is a conscious, and sometimes mentally violent action to re-calibrate our focus on the Father’s heart.  This re-calibration will not have any temptation or sin anywhere in its view, but will only be focused on the Father’s heart and what He is saying at the present moment.  Darkness cannot exist in light. The smallest light in the world will ALWAYS overcome the deepest darkness.

This is a call…a call for continual re-calibration. Scripture refers to this as the ‘renewed mind’ (Ephesians 4:23).  The Lord is calling His people to the deep things of His heart, and we can’t get there if we are still trying to learn the ‘simple’ things.  (I’m preaching to myself here.)

The Good News of the Gospel is that we have been set free. Our engagement in spiritual battle is from a place of rest…its easy!  I am the first to admit it’s not necessarily simple…but it is easy.  It’s so easy that we actually enter a place of rest when we enter Him and engage.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus…” Hebrews 12:1-2a

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Posted in: Body of Christ, Living Life, Sin