In the last discourse, I wrote about my prison experience and the beauty of freedom. I did not truly realize its value until I had mine taken away from me temporarily. However the kind of freedom I spoke of is basically physical. There is another kind of freedom that Jesus spoke of which in my view is spiritual and I believe that this is the true and everlasting freedom.
Jesus came to set the captives free, to heal the sick, to set an example, to give instruction to the hearts of men..but there is something much more than all that. Then
Jesus said to those jews who believed Him, 'if you Abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed and you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you Free' (John 8:31-32). The question now is; what is the Truth and what will the Truth free us from?
Dear friends, the answers could be found in scripture. In (John 14:6) Jesus said to him, 'I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me'. So according to the Bible as we can see, Jesus Christ is the Truth. In other words, what he is telling you and me today is that if we abide in his Word (study the Bible and keep HIs commandments), He will make us free. It is important to note here that to effectively have knowledge of God we must read about his Word in the bible. But what does Jesus ( the Truth) want to set us free from?
Again, the answer can be found in scripture. And The Lord God commanded the man saying 'of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die' (Genesis 2:16-17). What I understood from this is that God was speaking of not just the physical death but also the spiritual one which is the second death. God is always faithful to His words.
Adam and Eve were not able to keep this instruction and ate of the forbidden fruit. And so through one mans disobedience sin and death entered into the world. See (Romans 5:19) it was also written in (Romans 6:23) for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Dear friends, there is a second death that is worse than a prison experience and it is for eternity. Now that is very scary and serious. See (Revelation 20:11-15) and (Mathew 25:29-46) Jesus came to set us free from the second death and to give us Eternal Life by redeeming us with His blood. But we need to believe this, confess and forsake our sins and accept Jesus as Lord in our lives. We also need to keep his commandments as a demonstration of our faith in Him. Jesus said, 'if you love Me, keep My commandments' (John 14:15) Obedience to the commandments of God is a true test of our faith.
Finally brethren, Eternal Life from God through Christ Jesus is the TRUE FREEDOM!
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