‘So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”’ – Isaiah 6:5-7
When you say yes to Jesus, He doesn’t want to present Himself as an Easter story or as a Christmas story to you.
He wants to touch you so that your life is never the same, to the effect that when someone hears your testimony, it’s so foreign to them because you’re an entirely different person from the one you’re sharing about. This is what it means to be fully free!
TOTAL FREEDOM
What does it mean to surrender to God fully? Utter abandonment comes from the complete surrender of who you were and understanding that who you were is no longer who you are. Jesus didn’t pay a price to set us a little free, He paid the price for total freedom.
There are a lot of people who don’t believe that they’re going to be free until they get to Heaven. And if that’s true, then you’re implying that death is your savior and Jesus is not. If you have to wait until Heaven to get free then the gospel is not the gospel. John 8:36 NKJV says, “Therefore if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.”
If we claim to be free, why are most people walking in bondage? Why are we walking in hurt and calling it ministry?
God thought the price that He paid was worth the life that you have. He thought that the price He paid was in equal proportion to that which was paid for. In other words, the life of Jesus Christ is the value system of Heaven that He paid for each individual who would say yes.
God thought that your life was of great value to redeem–to pay a high price for it to get it back.
1 John 3:8 says, “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
LIVING IN FREEDOM
Did you know that you can be really healed just by getting your soul straight? John in his letter prays that they may prosper in all things and be in health, just as their soul prospers, but how can they be in good health if their soul is not prospering due to lack of belief in God’s word?
‘Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. ‘ – III John 1:2
For example, Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
If you don’t believe that you can come to Jesus and receive rest from your burdens, then your soul is not prospering, and thus your health can be affected. Often time, believers may face health issues such as insomnia, but their lack of belief will keep them awake. Their issue stems from having no rest because they’re not believing the word of God. On top of that, things that we hold on to such as offenses/unforgiveness prevent us from experiencing rest. If we lived in the freedom in Christ that we now have, there would be no room for offenses and unforgiveness to pile up because we are instructed to forgive. How can we live in rest if we’re in unforgiveness?
Don’t you want to be free from what others have done to you? If Jesus says that you can be free, why do you think that your situation is above His word? Why do you think anything you have been through is more powerful than Jesus saying that you can live in freedom?
God wants you to be free from sin-consciousness and live in son-consciousness so you no longer have a guilty conscience.
God doesn’t want you to have to fight for what you have. He wants to help you fight your battles.
FREE FROM SELF
You are born with a selfish spirit, but when you are born again, God wants to cut that out of you completely and bring you into ministry. You can’t worship unless you are worshiping in spirit and truth, and the truth is that selfishness is from the devil.
2 Corinthians 11:2 says, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him.” You have come out of the world and you are no longer a part of it.
Freedom is when you are free from each other because when you don’t have that freedom then you don’t have love. God wants to change you on the inside so that you are fully in love and enveloped in his love, compassion, care, and zeal.
n Luke 7, we learn of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Her sins were many but because she has been forgiven much, she will love much. A lot of times we walk in unforgiveness because we don’t believe that we’ve been forgiven. When was the last time you didn’t think about it? Yesterday? A year ago? When was the last time you were free from thinking about the things that you wish you had never done or the things that were never done for you?
Because Jesus paid the price to take away sin, condemnation, guilt, and shame are no longer welcome. If they are still remaining, then we are believing that we have not been forgiven when we repent. We have to believe that we have been made fully free by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus). The Old Testament focuses on what you had to do to be right with God and the New Testament focuses on what Jesus did to make you right with God.
On the day of atonement, the blood of the bulls and goats covered over your sin and only cleansed the outside and left the inside condemned. The blood of Jesus didn’t cleanse the outside–it washed the inside of the cup. If the blood of Jesus comes and washes the inside of the cup, then our outside will be cleansed, and we would truly walk out the freedom afforded us by Christ!
God wants to free the body of Christ from walking in hurt and pain so they can know the counsel of God and speak truth into someone’s life instead of being offended by what they thought they knew.
The devil doesn’t back off when you come to church. He wants to stop you from knowing that you are loved by God and thus, disable your love walk. He wants you to incorporate Jesus in your life to see what He can do for you instead of you living for Jesus. When you live this way, the moments where you deem Jesus as not showing up in your life, you get angry. This is not the way to freedom.
God is not calling you to bring Him in for a better day. He’s calling you to rise up as righteous warriors, holy, set apart, in the world but not of it. He is calling you to be completely clean and believe the Gospel. He has set you free so that you can live fully free, every day until that day when you will meet face-to-face with the One whom our souls love.
APPLICATION QUESTIONS
How badly do you want to go after God? Do you want to burn for Jesus? Don’t let offense rule your life.
Do you want to be free? God loves you and He wants you to be free. Go after Jesus like never before, repenting and giving your past to Him so that you can live in complete freedom now and forevermore.
