Defining Liberty, Part One
by Charles R. Swindoll
by Charles R. Swindoll
Without becoming needlessly academic, I want to define a term
that I've been tossing around. What do I mean when I declare that the Christian
has liberty? Essentially, liberty is freedom . . . freedom from something
and freedom to dosomething. Today I will concentrate on what our liberty
gives us freedom from.
Liberty is freedom from slavery or bondage. It is initially
freedom from sin's power and guilt. Freedom from God's wrath. Freedom from
satanic and demonic authority. And equally important, it is freedom from shame
that could easily bind me, as well as freedom from the tyranny of others'
opinions, obligations, and expectations.
There was a time in my life without Christ when I had no freedom
from the urges and impulses within me. I was at the mercy of my master Satan
and sin was my lifestyle. When the urges grew within me, I had nothing to hold
me in check, nothing to restrain me. It was an awful bondage.
For example, in my personal life I was driven by jealousy for
many miserable years. It was consuming. I served it not unlike a slave serves a
master. Then there came a day when I was spiritually awakened to the charming
grace of God and allowed it to take full control, and almost before I knew it
the jealousy died. And I sensed for the first time, perhaps in my whole life,
true love; the joy, the romance, the spontaneity, the free-flowing creativity
brought about by the grace of a faithful wife, who would love me no matter
what, who was committed to me in faithfulness for all her life. That love and
that commitment motivated me to love in return more freely than ever. I no
longer loved out of fear that I would lose her, but I loved out of the joy and
the blessing connected with being loved unconditionally and without restraint.
Now that Christ has come into my life and I have been awakened
to His grace, He has provided a freedom from that kind of slavery to sin. And
along with that comes a freedom that brings a fearlessness, almost a sense of
invincibility in the presence of the adversity. This power, keep in mind, is
because of Christ, who lives within me.
In addition, He has also brought a glorious freedom from the
curse of the Law. By that I mean freedom from the constancy of its demands to
perform in order to please God and/or others. It is a freedom from the fear of
condemnation before God as well as from an accusing conscience. Freedom from
the demands of other people, from all the shoulds and oughts of
the general public.
Such freedom is motivated—motivated by unconditional
love. When the grace of Christ is fully awake in your life, you find you're no
longer doing something due to fear or out of shame or because of guilt, but
you're doing it through love. The dreadful tyranny of performing in order to
please someone is over . . . forever.
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