Scripture: Galatians 5:1-6
“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1)
Christ has set us free. We are free. Thanks be to God.
I want you to take a minute and think about a difficult time where you felt as though you were trapped in your life, or unable to make a change. How did you get through? Did you move on in your life only later to return to what was causing problems in the first place?
We can take this lesson in scripture and apply it to so many aspects of our lives. For instance, we can start with something easy and look at dieting. How many of you have ever started a diet on New Year’s Day? How many of you were still committed to your diet by March? How many by April? For those of you who no longer became committed to the diet, think about what happened. Did you decide to have a piece of cake at a party one day? Did you decide that it was okay to have an extra serving of your favorite meal that mom made (because you wouldn’t want things to go to waste, now would we?) and things just started to go downhill from there?
When we break out of a cycle it is often so easy to slowly pick up and return to what we were initially doing in the first place (in a short amount of time). This can truly be said about many aspects of one’s life, whether it’s dieting, exercise, drinking, smoking, money, gambling, shopping, etc.
What the scripture tells us is that we are free, Christ has set us free. Thanks, be to God that we can be free! However, what the scripture also tells us is that we must stand firm and not submit again to a yoke of slavery. We know that Christ has set us free however, this does not mean that we can go back to the same demons that he has set us free from and expect that everything will be okay. We have a responsibility to stand firm and to not submit ourselves to that slavery. Slavery is a very strong word. How often do we make ourselves slaves to different vices in life? Sometimes it’s easy to overlook this.
Lent is a season where we are called back to enter a right relationship with Christ. We have the blessing of knowing that we are accepted for whom we are as sinners and that God has promised that we are not alone. God has also promised us that we are free; he has set us free from whatever has enslaved us in our lives. However, God is also telling us that we have a responsibility to be accountable and to choose not to return to old behaviors that can bring us back into that cycle of slavery again. Thanks, be to God for the blessing and lessons we have in life, and for giving us the ability to move forward and to change.
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