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Sunday, July 4,
2010
Liberty
With liberty comes responsibility and
there was a cost to the liberty in which you now walk in Christ.
1
Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought
with a price: therefore glorify God in
your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (KJV)
1
Corinthians 7:23 Ye are bought
with a price; be not ye the servants of
men (KJV)
No
longer are you to serve men, but you are to serve God your Father in Spirit
and in truth. Jesus Christ died so that you would have life and life more
abundantly. It is now your responsibility to maintain this liberty that you
have been given through Christ. Growing up into Him in all things; putting
away childish things and maturing in His divine nature.
1 Peter 2:15-16 For so is the will of
God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men; (16) As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of
God. (KJV)
Yes, you are free in Christ but do not
use this liberty for a covering of wickedness, but do all things honestly
and uprightly before men that your Father in heaven may be glorified
through your good conversation in Christ. Let not your liberty in Christ become of
no effect.
Maintain your freedom in Christ by
walking in the newness of life, putting to death daily the cravings,
desires, and maliciousness of the flesh, being made alive in the Spirit as
servants of God. Serve in the newness of the Spirit, obeying from the heart
in Spirit and in truth, not in the oldness of the letter as the many do.
You are Christ’s freeman yet in this liberty you do serve Him through love;
for He first loved you, even unto death. Will you serve Him in like manner?
Your
responsibility is to continue to work out our own salvation with fear and
trembling, not anyone else’s as many would have you to think; for many will
tell you that now that you are saved that you have to go out and witness to
your family, friends and many others; making an open show by words and
works before others that you have accepted Jesus Christ.
Galatians
5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty
for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. (KJV)
Instead,
you have a responsibility to be a witness of the truth of Christ within you,
living and walking uprightly in Him, being an example of the believers,
ready and willing to speak on our Father’s behalf as the Spirit gives
utterance; that in all manner of your life you hold forth the Word of life
in sincerity and in truth that one more may seek and desire to have this
same life and liberty that you have in Christ. Christ is love. Love is
laying down your life for your brethren, dying daily to the wants and
desires of your flesh, as Jesus Christ did for you. By love serve up truth
to one another, encourage, strengthen, and exhort one another while it is
today keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And now my beloved brethren I leave you
with this, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; so stand fast
therefore in the liberty where with Christ has made you free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
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