Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

Liberty is a Choice Away

If you believe that God will deliver you, that His Spirit dwelling in you can make you live victoriously and you choose to pursue that free gift, those that come to Him, He will turn none away. He'll do exceedingly abundant above anything that you could ask or think. So just change your course. Too many people are waiting for God to come and do it. Too many of us sit around and hope that somehow we will experience a Damascus road encounter. But most of us are going to have a Matthew experience: everything is going great--you're a fat cat, easy street--then you hear, "Follow Me." Now you have to make a decision that will cost you everything. You can't follow Him without giving everything up. There's no partial commitment to this kingdom, because if you don't love Him more than mothers, fathers, houses, and lands, then you're not worthy of Him. You'll never know the grace or the revelation. Your mind will remain carnal, and it'll seem foolish to make that decision.

God has placed in every one of us this awesome power of choice, of freewill. Choose this day who you're going to serve. Do you want to be free? Your liberty is only a choice away. You are in the condition that you're in because you choose to be there. The gods that dominate your life are because you've erected them; you've chosen to worship them. You can become as bold as Gideon, choose to destroy the gods, know that there will be a cost; and the grace will be there to make you victorious. So don't wait for God to do something; He's done everything He's going to do. Everything that pertains to life and godliness has already been given to us, and so we need to draw upon it and rest in it today. Seek the kingdom first. Draw nigh unto God, and He'll draw nigh unto you. If you pant for Him as the hart does the brook, you'll be satisfied.

There's nothing wrong with gratification, pleasure or enjoyment, but you don't have to have those things. Is there the compulsion or the bondage to have to have them? Do you get your worth from those things? They can't be what satisfies you. The only thing that can satisfy you is the rivers of living water that spring up inside of you and refresh you. The only thing that can satisfy you is the Bread of Life. The only thing that can satisfy and sustain you is the broken body of Jesus--the drinking of His blood, the eating of His flesh.

Liberty is the ability to live free from the power, the compulsion and the need of having to have other things to satisfy. There isn't any merit in abstaining from certain things that may be amoral and end up in the yoke of bondage that Paul spoke about in Galatians. We don't abstain to be righteous; it does not make you holy. Don't get hung up on little amoral things that are a part of life that are not sin. It only becomes sin when you need it. It only becomes sin when you defend it against the Word of God or defend it against preferring others better than yourself. When you prefer our "liberty" over the time that you spend in edifying others and then lie to yourself about why you're doing it, then you have a problem. Don't focus on the liberties as much as on the biblical principle of being free--liberated from the flesh and from the power of sin in your members--to pursue God with all of your heart. You are free! Sin no longer has dominion over you!

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