Christ Has Truly Set Us Free! (updated)

“And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham.  You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”   (Galatians 3:29)

Genesis 12:1-3 says,

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

And Genesis 17:1-8, says, “When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him again and said, ‘I am God All-Powerful. If you obey me and always do right, I will keep my solemn promise to you and give you more descendants than can be counted.’ Abram bowed with his face to the ground, and God said:

I promise that you will be the father of many nations. So now I'm changing your name from Abram to Abraham.  I will give you a lot of descendants, and they will become great nations. Some of them will even be kings.

I will always keep the promise I have made to you and your descendants, because I am your God and their God.  I will give you and them the land in which you are now a foreigner. I will give the whole land of Canaan to your family forever, and I will be their God.”

Abraham was a great father of many.   Fathers cause sons to inherit. Here we see that we are heirs of the promises made all the way back to Abraham.  God promised to expand his territory.  He also promised that Abraham would make a difference and be a blessing to the world.  He promised to have his back and bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him.  Finally, he promised Abraham he would leave a huge legacy.  

In the lineage of Jesus, we see many fathers listed.   When we came into salvation, we inherited promises all the way back to Abraham.   When we look at the lineage that was recorded in Matthew 1:1-17, we inherited the entire promise through Jesus. Every faithful act and promise made as a result are ours.  

We inherit the sacrificial life of Isaac, the hunger for the things of God and open heaven of Jacob, the worship of Judah, the blessing of Perez and on and on.  We inherit the wisdom available to Solomon and the heart after God of David.  We inherit the lineage of king after king.  We inherit walking in the miraculous of Hezekiah. 

This is all ours to receive and inherit.  We receive blessing after blessing (John 1:16).   We are promised to have the Lord’s favor.  We have a heritage of those who lead and rule.   We also, like Hezekiah, have access to the miraculous in our lives if we receive it and embrace it. 

As my mom just passed away yesterday, I think about what she caused me to inherit and what I hope to inherit from her.  She was a faithful woman who loved Jesus with all her heart.   She experienced loss after loss in her latter years in health, not being able to live on her own, having to give up driving, and eventually moving into a facility where we had to ask permission to take her anywhere.   Yet in the midst of losses, she remained joyful and all the more loving and giving.   It didn’t cause her to diminish or become bitter or sad, but expanded her in love and giving to others the more she lost.  I’ve watched her for years praising the Lord in every difficulty and cherish the loving faithfulness and trust she demonstrated.

As she was in her final days, she was reciting Psalm 23 and singing hymns to the Lord.  He was gracious to us and all her children were around her, just as she desired, and she passed quickly with no pain.  She had been seeing visions of heaven for some days before she passed on to be with the Lord.  She could have held on and suffered long but she didn’t.  Like so many times before, she just let it all go while praising the Lord.    She finished so well and I would do the same.  I would love to finish well like her and when it is my time, to see visions of heaven and then just walk into it, leaving this world and my body behind with no pain or struggle.  

What I learned from her is that it is not so much about getting everything right, as I know and saw that she made some mistakes, but what you do with it that matters.  If you keep holding on and trusting the Lord, eventually everything turns for glory.   Death is resurrected into new life.  As she let go, she is now in the fullness of glory.  I miss her terribly but know I will see her again.

This ability to let go of all else and hold on to God is also something we can inherit.  Jesus demonstrated this more than any other person before Him.  In Luke 9:22 Jesus says to His disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things... He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law.  He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.”

Jesus went on then to say in Luke 9:23, that in the same way, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.  If you try to hang onto your life, you will lose it.  But if you give up your life for my sake, you save it.   And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed.”

I want to learn to live more like this, letting go and surrendering all to follow Him.  I want to learn to cleave tightly to the Lord.  I want circumstances to help me grow stronger in the Lord and not defeat me.  Most of all, like her, I want to learn to be kind in everything.

Coming back to the verse about being heirs to promise all the way back through Abraham, as my devotional noted this morning, Abraham had two sons.  One was a child of bondage through a slave girl and one was a child of freedom (Galatians 4:25), through Sarah—whose name means princess, who is destined to rule.   While Abraham had faith to believe for the promises, Sarah birthed them forth.  

The covenant that we are under is one of freedom.   Christ set us free to live a free life (Galatians 5:1, MSG).  In this Covenant, we are set free to live this life in its fullness.   Surrendering the world and dying to the flesh brings greater freedom.  My mother did not surrender all and follow out of her own strength, but by the Spirit as she was set free.   She was free in losing the world and the bondage of it.  Because she was freed, facing her death she didn’t fear, she was free to sing and to praise as she ultimately has freedom over death.   

Romans 7:6 says that we have been released from the bondage of observing the law, we died to it, and are no longer under its captivating power.  We serve God, not the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but the way of living in the Spirit in freedom.    Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 

Romans 6:20-23 says that when we were slaves to sin, we were in bondage to it and ashamed as a result that led to eternal doom.  Now, we are free from the power of sin and are slaves to God, doing those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.

We not only inherit these incredible promises through the Covenant and have an amazing heritage as we stand on the shoulders of our forefathers that have went before us, we are empowered by the Spirit to accomplish good through the Spirit of God.  What is most important is faith expressing itself in love (Galatians 5:5) and that is who we become.   In this, as Galatians 5:1 says "Christ has truly set us free!"

Ephesians 3:20 tells us that all things are possible, abundantly above what we can ask or imagine not according to our ability to get it right or our own strength, but according to His power that is at work within us.  And Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel is the “power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”  

Note that Paul is referring to salvation for those who believe.  In this sense, he is not talking about salvation in the sense of coming to know Christ.  Rather, in knowing Him, our salvation (deliverance from ruin) comes about from the power of God. 

Thinking of my mom and taking this all the way through, we cannot get to eternity without the power of God.  This death to life by the power of God leads to our ultimate salvation as we pass from full death to full life.  Think about this.  It requires both faith and the power of God to pass into the eternal Kingdom.  And as there is death in the natural body, there is resurrection by the power of God into the eternal.  We go from glory to glory until we experience the ultimate glory in our resurrected form where we fully walk in the power of God.

Philippians 3:20-22 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

We know that His glorious body is so filled with glory that there is no need for the sun or moon in heaven as the Lamb, illuminates the city by His glory.  In the same way, our new bodies will be containers for His glory.  They will radiate the glory of Christ. 

1 Corinthians 15:39:42 tells us that there are differing amounts of glory in our heavenly bodies radiating based upon how we lived, sowing into the Kingdom of God here on earth.  It says, “All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another. And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly body is one sort and the earthly another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.  It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.”

Lord, we are children of immense promises and goodness.  Help us to see the fullness of all we inherit through you.  Thank you for giving us freedom to live into the fullness of Your love.   Let the Holy Spirit guide our lives and set us free to express Your love in its fullness.  Ultimately, let us shine with the brilliance of the stars.