July 4
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind.
Psalm 33:12-13
July 4With our celebration of freedom approaching, earlier in the week I was led to look up verses related to being free. I compiled them in a couple different translations and printed them up to share with friends who were stopping by. They are below for you. As you read these, praise God for all the freedoms he has established for us.
Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. Ephesians 1:7-10
May your Fourth of July weekend be filled with thanksgiving and rejoicing knowing we live in a country where we are still free to love Jesus.
Oh, thank God—he’s so good! His love never runs out. All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression,
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts
“Therefore,
say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the
yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I
will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the (free) gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Now the Lord
is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Romans 8:1-2
Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because
through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has
set you free from the law of sin and
death.
Luke 4:14-22
Jesus
returned to Galilee (after
being tempted in the desert) in the
power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He
was teaching in their synagogues,
and everyone praised him.
He went
to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the
Sabbath day he went into the synagogue,
as was his custom. He
stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was
handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of
the Lord is on me, because
he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set
the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s
favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it
back to the attendant and sat down.
The eyes of everyone in
the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”All spoke well of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this
Joseph’s son?” they asked.
[ The Life
of Freedom ] Christ has set us free to live a free
life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on
you.
[ What Is
True Freedom? ] So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does
that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom
of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough
from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom
that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s
your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom
never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God
you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free
to live openly in his freedom!
For my part, I
am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set
free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into
the little patterns that they dictate.
