Where at Least I Know I’m Free!

“WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW I’M FREE!”

No matter what your political stance, most of us can agree that we are thankful for the freedoms we enjoy in this country. These freedoms that we enjoy did not come free. They were bought at a high price. Much blood has been shed to walk each day in these freedoms that we have in this country.

Our family recently took a family field trip to DC, Arlington, Jamestown, Yorktown, and Colonial Williamsburg. Every stop was steeped in rich American History, but the most impactful stop we made was at Arlington Cemetery. The changing of the guards watching over The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was sobering. This tomb represents every soldier who has died on our behalf, yet we don’t even know their names. We don’t even know their names because at death perhaps they were unrecognizable. But in this brutal death, they paid for something of great value and deserve the highest honor. The high reverence and esteem could be felt in the air as we watched guards step in time to protect this sacred tomb. Though hundreds stand by to watch this ceremonial transition every hour on the hour, not a word is spoken. However, the changing of the guards is not the only awe inspiring experience at Arlington. Merely walking through the cemetery carried a heavy weight felt deep to the bone, as we surveyed the hundreds of thousands of graves as far as the eye could see. Each grave embraced the remains of someone, so many someones, who were willing to give up their lives for another.

Each step through this sacred cemetery brought more realization to my mind of the high value of human life. And to understand the value of life is to understand the value, importance, and basic need of freedom that each life is given.

At the onset of creation, The Divine, in His infinite wisdom, chose to give freedom to humanity by giving mankind a free will. Too often, we rush through this thought instead of savoring it. Woah! Complete and total freedom! Infinite Freedom! Man was not created to be controlled. Not by God, not by rules, not by anyone or anything. Man was given the freedom to choose. Free will is the first greatest act of love we received from the Father. From Elohim, Our Creator God, we received – Freedom! Freedom to think. Freedom to an opinion. Freedom to behave. Freedom to misbehave. Freedom to choose. Freedom to obey. Freedom to disobey. Freedom to succeed. Freedom to fail…

Freedom to be human!

To always operate in the expectation of another isn’t freedom at all. It’s control.

Our Creator didn’t want a people to control, He wanted a people to love!

Before the foundation of the earth (which was before He created man), He purposed man’s very creation with freedom, knowing full well that we would fail and need a Rescuer. Our Creation, our freedom, our failure, our Savior, His Grace, His redemption, His salvation, His Righteousness, His Favor, was foreseen and planned out by the Father from the very beginning! Only this freedom did not come free! He had to pay the ultimate price. The highest price. His one and only Son. Not only His one and only Son, but His Son that knew no sin. He became sin, so that we, who failed through the sweet gift of our freedom, could be free once more!

What does it mean to be free once more?

Let’s step back into the Garden for a moment. God made Adam and Eve in His image. In His likeness. Eternal beings.

Then He gave man the freedom to choose. With the freedom to fail. What a gracious gift!

The Trinity had one limitation for man – to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. With this limitation the Trinity had one concern of a sad and lasting effect if man chose, through his freedom, to ignore God’s wisdom and warning. This was the effect that the Trinity wanted man to avoid: “that man has become like One of Us knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:22

Let’s pause for a moment and think about this. These two trees foreshadow the Old and New Covenants. Notice that the tree that Adam and Eve were told not to eat from was not called the Tree of The Knowledge of Evil. No. It was called The Tree of The Knowledge of GOOD and Evil. Interesting! Half (or at least some portion) of the tree provided Knowledge of Good! Hmmmm….So there is a problem with having the Knowledge of both together. The Knowledge of both together gives man the illusion that if he knows right and wrong, he can make up for his “wrongs” with his own “rights.” This my friends, is known as self-righteousness and self-effort. The Trinity did not want man to ever operate in self righteousness and self effort. Because of the fateful decision by Adam and Eve to eat from the tree and the fact that there existed yet another tree in the Garden – The Tree of Life, which gave eternal existence in the Life of God, the rest of Genesis 3:22 says – “and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever ” so man was banished from the Garden for his own protection.

To live eternally in self effort would be man’s own demise, causing harm to himself and others. It would lead to eternal death. Self effort leads to death. Life is only found in God. In fact did you know that when we are born, we are born dead, because the Bible tells us that we are born into Adams’s sin? That we inherited sin and that before we place our faith in Christ we are “dead in our sins?” Only through our faith in Christ do we become alive! Alive in Christ! This is how we are “born again.”

– First, we are born earthly alive which is spiritually dead.

– Next, we are born spiritually alive (placing faith in Christ) while we are earthly alive.

– And last we die an earthly death, but remain spiritually alive – even more alive than ever before because we are no longer bound by our earthly limitations! We remain alive for eternity! We are eternal beings made in the image of an eternal God!

The power of the Tree of Life – Life in eternity, is the reason Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden. Now they would need to experience an earthly death, to be free from the effect of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which is self effort. Because The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was partaken of by man, the flesh will always desire self effort. The flesh will always desire law – A list of rules. Something to accomplish in man’s own effort. Fast forward to Exodus, God wanted to lead His people, the Israelites in Grace with manna, quail, and water from stones, but man wanted to accomplish something in his own power and asked for the Law. God reluctantly provided for their desires. He did this as a way to show man our need for a Savior who would fulfill the Law because we never could. God still allows man to satisfy his fleshly desire of self effort.

When you study the teachings of Jesus you find that to anyone asking for Law, He gives it! In abundance! He always gives in abundance because He knows exactly what we need! To the one wanting to be sanctified through their own holiness and self effort, instead of receiving the sanctification He gives freely as we rest in Him, He gives more Law. Harder Law. Stricter Law. Look at the sermon on the mount. The reason He does this is to lead man to realize through his fleshly desire in self effort to DO good and fulfill the Law, that he actually never can. Only Jesus can and does and does it through us! Only Him! Not us! BUT to the one asking for Grace, He gives Grace! Only Grace. And He gives it in abundance. He always gives in abundance! I don’t know about you, but if the options based on what you ask for lead to either more Grace or harder Law, I’d rather ask for Grace and let Him be the One who focuses on His accomplishment (past tense) of the Law. There’s no part of it left for us to fulfill! He did a completed work!

Many who feast on what the flesh desires in self effort and Law claim that those who teach a message such as this or those they claim teach “too much Grace” use the verse in 2 Timothy 4:3 which says “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.”

Many read this verse with with a self effort mindset and believe Grace teaching tickles the ears but actually Paul (the one who wrote 2 Timothy) was the first Grace teacher and in the context of those he was teaching, the verse is actually warning about those who teach Law, “Practical Steps” to Christianity, or making sure you “balance Grace with Law” being the ones who are “tickling the ears” of the flesh. Remember self effort was the first sin in the Garden. It’s the basic desire of the flesh. The Gospel that Paul preached was the Gospel of Grace. Not balanced with Law. To preach and teach a gospel with a balance of law is to preach another gospel. A gospel with attachments that it was never meant to have. In fact for 400 years, the early church Gentiles, didn’t even have the Law or the study of it. They only had Paul’s letters and the only sin Paul speaks of in the New Covenant is “anything that is not of Faith.” – Romans 14:23.

Works is not of Faith. It takes Faith to believe that you are righteous in the sight of God even when you are sinning because of the blood of Jesus alone. But it is Works that leads us to believe that praying hard, spending a lot of time reading the Bible, and doing good makes you righteous in the sight of God. See the difference? Do you see what your flesh wants to believe makes you right with God? Your flesh wants to believe that a person fasting is more righteous to God than a person in the middle of telling a lie, right? But my Bible says that only Jesus alone earned my righteousness once for all time! It’s not based on my behavior- “lest I boast!” He doesn’t die again every time I sin. No! Once I place my faith in Christ I am righteous forevermore whether in that moment I am fasting or lying.

This message scared religious leaders in Paul’s day and it scares religious lovers today! The message of Grace alleviates the ability to control the behavior of people. The message of Grace is Freedom! Religious mongers want to control people’s behavior. But remember God didn’t create people to be controlled. Not by Himself and certainly not by others. He created people to be free!

God’s ultimate desire is for a people to be in union with Him! Those in union with Him live by the Spirit, not by controlled behavior.

The apostle Paul was accused of preaching too much Grace. I’ve heard a pastor challenge teachers that if you aren’t being accused of teaching too much Grace you aren’t teaching the same Gospel that Paul preached. You are preaching a mixed gospel. Gospel mixed with Old Covenant Law that has been fulfilled in Jesus. Not only could we never fulfill it, but there is nothing left to fulfill. The Old Covenant Law has ended.

“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” – Romans 10:4

The GOOD NEWS, the True Gospel of Grace, the Gospel that Paul preached is that God already had a plan as the solution to man’s condition of sin and the desire for self righteousness. We see the first foreshadow of this solution while Adam and Eve were still in the Garden before they were banished. See in the Garden, after they sinned, Adam and Eve were now focused on their sin. This was something God never intended. Had they not gained knowledge of Evil, they would not know Evil, but now they did and it made them aware of their sin. In an attempt to cover their sin, they covered themselves with fig leaves (Genesis 3). This is the first time we see fig leaves mentioned in the Bible, but figs, fig trees, and fig leaves carry great significance throughout the rest of the Bible. It’s wise when you recognize repetitive appearances in the Bible to go to the first place it is mentioned to study and find its purest meaning which will be symbolic throughout scripture.

Here in the Garden, the fig leaves represent self righteousness / self effort. Man’s attempt to cover His own sin and make it right. This is why God removes the fig leaves and covers Adam and Eve with animal skins instead. These animal skins are the first time that an animal was slain to cover man’s sin. Throughout the Old Covenant animal sacrifice was required to atone for the sin of man. But this arrangement was only temporary. This arrangement was a foreshadow of what Jesus would do once for all time! See in the Old Covenant animal sacrifice had to be made continually, but Jesus’ blood was so powerful that it only had to be shed once! The blood of animals could only atone as a representation for past sins of the people, but the blood of Jesus paid for ALL sin! Every single sin of every single person. For our past sin, our present sin, and our future sin. The animal skins in the Garden were a foreshadow of Jesus. We see at the onset, that God removes fig leaves (self effort) and replaced them with animal skins (Jesus’ righteousness). We see the Two Covenants in the Garden! We see Jesus! We see God’s Grace! So Beautiful!

The significance of fig leaves show up again during Passion week as Christ is preparing to go to the Cross (Mark 11:12-14). Jesus sees the fig tree with leaves but no fruit, do you remember? After seeing the tree with fig leaves instead of fruit, He curses the tree. This is beautiful! He is referencing all the way back to the Garden! Do you see it? In this act He is doing two things:

1) He is cursing the Old system of the Old Covenant. He is cursing self righteousness and self effort.

2) He is looking toward the Holy Spirit coming to live within us and bear His fruit through us. The scripture says that the fig tree wasn’t in season to bear fruit. It wasn’t in season because the Holy Spirit had not come yet. No one is able to bear His fruit yet. Only the Holy Spirit inside of us is capable of bearing His fruit

The Old System of the Old Covenant can not bear the fruit of the Spirit because it’s a system built on self effort – to prove man’s inability to achieve righteous in his own effort. Jesus cursed the old to make way for the new.

Sadly I have seen this scripture manipulated and twisted into a way to preach on more self effort – you better bear more fruit and live up to your potential. (A message that “tickles the ears” of the flesh) How sad to miss what Jesus was doing here. Not only is He not saying to bear more fruit, He is cursing the Old System that demands such things. He is paving the way for the New Covenant He was about to establish in His blood on the Cross making anyone who places faith in Him, His permanent dwelling place. His temple. The place He will bear fruit!

But here is a big misconception:

Misconception: Grace is only for salvation.

Truth: Jesus’ blood not only covers our past sins at salvation, He covers our current struggles and our future mess ups as well!

Grace is not our ticket to merely begin the journey of salvation and sanctification, it is the power for all of the Christian Life from start to finish! It is the awareness that self effort and self righteousness doesn’t get me saved and it doesn’t get me sanctified. Only the blood of Jesus and His imparted righteousness does BOTH of those things. Grace saves me and sustains me. Grace keeps me in right standing with God at all times regardless of my behavior (that would be self effort) because of the blood of Jesus alone!

Thank you Jesus! We have been set free!

Free to Love

Free to Hate

Free to Accept

Free to Reject

Free to Think

Free to Ignore

Free to Choose

Free to Refuse

Free to Rest

Free to Strive

Free to Surrender

Free to Abandon

Free to Live

Free to Die

Free to Succeed

Free to Fail

In Grace we have freedom! Once we place our faith in Christ, He lives within us and in all the moments we don’t let our self effort get in the way, He lives out a beautiful Christian life through us!

In Romans 8:1-4, Paul tells us

1Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.3For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did:sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,4so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. –

For He who the Son sets Free is FREE INDEED! – John 8:36

In Jesus – “at least I KNOW I’m FREE!”

I will never go back to the shackles of sin or the slavery of trying to accomplish the Law through my self effort! I am not controlled by self condemnation or the fear of condemnation in Christ (because there is none – (Romans 8:1). I will live, rest, and abide in the Freedom of His Love, Grace, and Truth. My knowledge of good and evil NOW is – knowing that everything in me that is good comes from He who dwells in me operating through me, and when my flesh gets in the way, I am already forgiven. I am at rest. And I am FREE!

Thank you Jesus!

I pray that you enjoy celebrating our nation’s independence this Fourth of July, and that you step into a fuller understanding of the Freedom we have in Christ through His abundant Grace!

On your journey consider this…

Because of Jesus, I am free. Because I’m free, I choose Jesus!

“May your journey bring freedom and your mind be ever renewed to His truth!” – Angel