Gloriously Free

Hello dear friends. Hope you had a nice weekend. 

It is a brand new week and it’s another day to share a new vignette of grace.We will continue looking at Paul’s epistle to the Galatians and we are now at chapter 5:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1 King James Version

This was one of the first verses I memorized as a young believer many years ago. Back then I did not know the implications of the verse I was memorizing but over the years since then, I’ve been getting to know in greater detail, clearer fashion and deeper dimension what that verse means.

I also remember that one of the earliest movies I saw that was very touching to me was “Escape from Sibobor”. It dramatized the story of a partially successful mass escape of prisoners from a secret Nazi death camp in October 1943. There were 600 Jews imprisoned at the camp and about 300 of them reached the surrounding forest and escaped. Can you just think of how absurd it would have been for any of the escapees to return to the death camp willingly and submit himself to the Camp Commandant?

Christ has really set us free and like Jesus said in John 8:36, “…if the Son liberates you (makes you free men), then you are really and unquestionably free” (Amplified Bible). Galatians 5:1 is even more emphatic: God didn’t set us free only for us to be enslaved again. It is absurd that after experiencing such liberation people would then submit themselves to be shackled again. It is even more absurd than it would have been for any of the escapees from Sibobor to return to the death camp. 

The “yoke of bondage” for the Galatians was the law and as you will notice from verses 2 to 5 of Galatians 5 particularly, they were being enticed to get circumcised. Circumcision in itself was not the problem. The problem as Paul identified was in depending or trusting in circumcision as a means of being declared righteous with God (Galatians 5:4). God’s message is very clear: when we depend on other things as a means of righteousness and justification apart from faith in Christ Jesus, we have lost sight of His grace and we are already being entangled in a yoke of bondage.

 A lot of times, people attempt to lure us away from God’s grace with rules and regulations on issues such as food, special ordinances, special celebrations, sacraments and all the like. They draw up elaborate man-made designs with different prerequisites for justification, righteousness and acceptance with God. We mustn’t allow ourselves be drawn away from the grace of God. God wants us to stand firm in the freedom Christ Jesus has given us. Don’t allow anything hold you in any sort of trap. Grace is the entry point, grace is also the sustenance of the new relationship we now have with God through Christ.

My song for the week is “All Because Of Jesus” by Steve Fee.

I’ll end with a different version of Galatians 5:1 that I really like:  

“Christ having made us gloriously free-stand fast and do not again be hampered with the yoke of slavery” (Weymouth New Testament). 

We are” gloriously free” and this is another snapshot of the amazing grace of God. Have a lovely day and a great week.

"All Because Of Jesus" by Steve Fee