All of us begin in spiritual bondage. Some find spiritual freedom. This devotion begins to look at what that spiritual freedom entails.
Nuggets
- God is the one who sent Jesus to the earth to secure our spiritual freedom.
- God calls us to spiritual freedom for a purpose – to further His kingdom.
- God gives us His Spirit so that we can accomplish the work that He has for us to do.
- Satan is going to try to capture us so that we don’t obey God.
Devotions in the What I Believe series
Devotions in the Religious Freedom category
Spiritual Freedom
Jesus the Liberator
What Religious Freedom Doesn’t Mean
I can see why the Sunday School Times did Bondage and Freedom in one sermon (which is the foundation of this devotion). The two concepts are intertwined.
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We can’t have freedom if there was no bondage. Bondage without the possibility of freedom is depressing.
Note: This devotion is running long, so I am going to break it up.
Let's Put It into Context
Freedom is, according to the Holman Bible Dictionary, “the ability of a person or group to be and do what they want instead of being controlled by another.” It is also referred to as liberty.
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We talked about liberty before. We said that it runs the gamut, hitting all the things the worldview stresses.
• We do what we please with no authority over us.
• We make our own choices.
• We don’t have to follow rules or limits.
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Spiritual Freedom Promised
“I am the Lord. I have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will hold you by your hand. I will watch over you, and I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations, in order to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those sitting in darkness from the prison houses” (Isa. 42: 6-7 CSB)
God is the one who sent Jesus to the earth to secure our spiritual freedom. That validates Jesus’ mission.
Spurgeon addressed this when he wrote, “much will depend upon the Liberator’s credentials, the authority by which He is warranted, and the power by which He is hacked.” I know. That last word was tripping me up, too.
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We think of a computer being hacked, which isn’t a good thing. Or we think about hacking away at something because we aren’t making much progress.
I think Spurgeon is using the definition of it is the tool for hacking. Jesus is the tool God used to hack away at spiritual death.
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Oh, yes. It was one fell swoop that eliminated spiritual bondage.
But God does have to hack the sin out of each of us – and keep hacking. Even when we have ABCDed, God has to keep at it because we keep sinning.
We don’t have to worry that God will give up on us as we continue to battle sin. In fact, God has promised to “… hold you by your hand …” (Isa. 42: 6 CSB). He will never leave us.
I thought verse 6 was interesting. “… and I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations” (Isa. 42: 6 CSB).
Notice that these verses don’t qualify that the covenant is just for the Jews. That is because it is not talking about Abraham’s covenant.
It is talking about Jesus’ covenant. He is the light of the world (Jn. 8: 12).
Glossary
Oh, yeah. Jesus also had a purpose for coming to earth: “in order to open blind
eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those sitting in darkness from the prison houses” (Isa. 42: 7 CSB). Jesus’ one purpose for leaving heaven and coming to this earth was to be our spiritual Savior.
We have to open our eyes to see God. When we ABCD, we are brought out of the dungeon of spiritual death. We are brought from darkness to light.
Glossary
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Jesus is considered a light because He is illuminating God’s character for us. He wants to show us God’s character so that we can imitate Him.
Glossary
Freedom to Do God’s Work
“The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners” (Isa. 61: 1 CSB)
God calls us to spiritual freedom. He selects us for a purpose. That purpose is to is to further His kingdom.
There is some debate as to who is speaking here. It may be Isaiah (Smith). It may not be (Delitzch). The Essex Congregational Remembrancer argues that it is Jesus Himself.
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I can see that this is Jesus talking. Isaiah 61: 1 is His ministry in a nutshell.
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I lean toward Isaiah rather than his servant. What do we know about Isaiah? We know he got his marching orders straight from God. “Then I heard the Lord asking, ‘Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am. Send me’ (Isa. 6: 8 NLT).
That would mean the Spirit of the Lord would be upon him. Yes, it could be on his servant, also.
But the prophet is supposed to prophecy, right? I don’t see Isaiah as just being the scribe.
Whoever it is, I think it applies to us, also. God gives us His Spirit so that we can accomplish the work that He has for us to do.
No, the purpose is not to fix the woes of this world. God sends us to be messengers. He calls us to an eternal world.
How do we know this? There are three important aspects to securing spiritual freedom – aspects we as disciples are to use in witnessing to others.
- Healing for the brokenhearted
- Liberty for the captives
- Freedom for the prisoners
Boston explained that broken-hearted is two-fold. He used two verses to do this.
- “‘Does not my word burn like fire?’ says the Lord. ‘Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?’” (Jer. 23: 29 NLT).
- “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died” (Zech. 12: 10 NLT).
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Why are we brokenhearted, and why do we need freedom? Unless we have ABCDed, we are captives of spiritual bondage. We are prisoners of sin.
If we are brokenhearted, that means we are cognizant of the fact that we need a Savior. That Savior is Jesus.
We can only accomplish this ministry to which God has called us by being anointed by the Holy Spirit. We can’t do that ourselves.
Yes, sometimes we may think it is our words that are comforting the brokenhearted and switching on the lightbulb so people ABCD.
But it isn’t us. It is God saving His creation, not us.
Freedom from the Bondage of Sin
“They worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them” (Ex. 1: 13-14 CSB)
Have you ever thought why the Israelites were made slaves in Egypt? I mean, God sent Joseph down there (Gen. 50: 20). Then he sent Jacob and his family (Gen. 46: 3-4).
God is all knowing, so He knew they would be made slaves (Ex. 1: 11). Why would He let that happen?
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I hadn’t really thought about it before. Nowhere in the first ten verses in Exodus does it say that the Israelites disobeyed God.
The way I read it is the Israelites were made slaves because God was blessing them. They had grown in numbers until the Egyptians were afraid of them.
Maybe Exell was right that the sufferings of the Israelites were punishment for their idolatry. That had to have happened after Jacob and Joseph died. We do know, however, that the Israelites were crying out to God (Ex. 3: 7).
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I don’t think so. Satan is going to try to capture us so that we don’t obey God. If we are disobeying God, he doesn’t have to go after us.
Isn’t Satan – in reality – afraid of disciples? He knows that we are blessed by God. We grow when we are obeying God – especially through trials.
Obeying God means Satan has less and less influence over people. To him, that is unacceptable.
So, Satan tries to capture disciples and make them disobey God. And man, is Satan a vicious taskmaster!
Satan promises what he will give is rainbows and unicorns. He promises justice and equality.
Satan is a big, fat liar. Jesus said so. “… He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him …” (Jn. 8: 44 CSB).
Robinson explained how it is to be a slave to Satan. He wrote, “One may give himself, body, soul, and spirit to the devil, and no fidelity will win him the least consideration. Injustice is the rule in sin, it never in any case has exceptions. The prince of evil simply uses his devotees all the worse because of their servility and patience.”
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That is from which Jesus saves us. He is the exact opposite
Jesus gave Himself for us to pay the penalty for our sins. He did this while we were still sinners – before we even considered ABCDing.
God shows no favorites, so there is no injustice. He rewards those who love Him and live for Him.
We know what happened. “But the Lord selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for his inheritance, as you are today” (Deut 4: 20 CSB).
A family went down to Egypt. A nation came out.
Think about what that must have looked like. Here was a couple million people orderly marching out. I doubt it was as organized as a parade, but there had to have been some organization.
However, the sheer number alone would have made a lasting impact on any who witnessed the Exodus.
Yes, God selected the Israelites. He also selected us. We just have to select Him back.
Making the Connections
I want to go back and roost on Isaiah 42: 7 a second. “in order to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those sitting in darkness from the prison houses” (Isa. 42: 6-7 CSB).
We don’t see what is right in front of us. Satan’s control over this world is obvious. The division and chaos all come from him. Non-believers don’t see it because they are blinded by Satan’s lies.
But we don’t see it just by opening our eyes. We have to open the eyes of our hearts.
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God uses the insights that He puts in our hearts through our observations so we can use that, rather than our own understanding, to determine what He is telling us. So, we see something with our eyes – His written Word, one of His disciples living out their lives reflecting Him.
But we have to accept it with our hearts. Until we open our hearts, we won’t accept it because it takes faith. Faith is the belief that the doctrines stated in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them.
Some people take longer than others at opening their hearts. That led Parker to write, “Men are in various stages of liberty. We are not all equally the free men of God.”
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Non-believers don’t open the eyes of their hearts. That’s why Boston thought they were worse than captives. They can’t see the prison in which they are incarcerated.
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It is our ministry as disciples to help non-believers open the eyes of their hearts. They need to see their prison before they no longer have the opportunity to choose God.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Satan will do everything in his power to keep us from convincing non-believers of their need for Jesus as their Savior. We are going to know exactly what we believe and why.
We’ve been looking at defending our beliefs when we are witnessing. That means we have to be secure enough to convince someone to accept our beliefs.
Our questions should still serve us to determine on what we need to focus.
- What does the Scriptures say?
- What do I believe?
- Why do I believe the same/differently than the Scriptures?
- What are the talking points when witnessing to a non-believer?
Related Links
I have created a worksheet of the questions above. Click on the button below to access it.
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Yes, it comes back to that. Those will always be the answers I give. Belief in God is the bottom line and the whole nine yards.
Father God. You have provided us a way in which we can break free of our spiritual bondage. You just ask that we make the decision to admit our sins, believe in Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, and confess You as Sovereign Lord. We choose You. Amen.
What do you think?
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