TRULY ABSOLUTELY FREE
Recently, I have had the opportunity to hear very good teaching out of the Book of Leviticus in my home Church, Lighthouse World Outreach in Monroe, Georgia.
This excellent teaching got me to really mediating on FREEDOM and the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, what it means and how understanding it will change our lives if we let it. I would like to share with you what the Lord has given me.
Webster’s II New Riverside dictionary defines :
Free: not imprisoned or constrained, not under necessity or obligation, not affected by a specific circumstance or condition.
Freedom: THE STATE OF BEING FREE OF CONSTRAINTS.
Isn’t that what sin is, a constraint, holding us back from a complete relationship with Jesus our Lord and God our Father? Sin holds us in bondage. Bondage (defined in same dictionary above) is; being involuntarily subject to power, force or influence. Being bound is being confined by our bondage, being enclosed in something like a book is bound.
Have you ever thought about it? Our sin, our old beliefs and blindness to the truth in God’s Word binds us to the ungodly. You see, if you aren’t bound to Jesus Christ then you are bound to ungodliness, it is that simple.
The wonderful thing is…Jesus Christ set us free from this! His sacrifice on the cross set me FREE! I am just now beginning to understand what that means.
-- Weymouth's New Testament
John 8:31-32: Jesus therefore said to those of the Jews who had now believed in Him, "As for you, if you hold fast to my teaching, then you are truly my disciples; and you shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free."
We have heard this verse for years, when I read it in the Weymouth’s Translation and saw that the word Truth was capitalized it hit me. Jesus is the Truth and it is Jesus that sets us free. Yes abiding in God’s Word and the truth in it is freedom, but it is Jesus Christ and Him crucified that SETS US FREE! As I have grown in my walk with the Lord, I have come to realize it is knowing Jesus that has set me free. Understanding what He did on the cross for me has added to that knowledge in more ways than I can count.
It has shown me the gateway to the many benefits of Christ’s redeeming work on the cross.
The Newsboys, a contemporary Christian recording group sing:
Through you the blind will see
Through you the mute will sing
Through you the dead will rise
Through you all hearts will praise
Through you the darkness flees
Through you my heart screams
I am free
I AM FREE TO RUN
I AM FREE TO DANCE
I AM FREE TO LIVE FOR YOU
I AM FREE
Through you the kingdom comes
Through you the battle's won
Through you the price is paid
Through you I'm not afraid
Through you there's victory
Because of you my soul sings
I am free
WHO THE SON SETS FREE-IS FREE INDEED
We all know this song and sing it many times in Sunday or Wednesday worship, but do we really understand how Jesus set us free?
Leviticus 16:7-10: 7. "He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. 8. "Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. 9. "And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. 10. "But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness….21. "and Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. 22. "The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.” NKJV
-- Revised Standard
Leviticus 16:10: “but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.”
This event took place every year one the Day of Atonement. It was when Aaron the Priest made atonement for the sins of the people. The thing I want to focus on is the scapegoat.
It was chosen, Aaron laid his hands on it and confessed the sins of the people on it, transferring their sin onto the goat and then the goat was led OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS AND RETURNED TO AZAZEL OR SATAN WHERE IT BELONGED!
The wilderness is an isolated separate place, away from civilization, the purpose of God being to return the sins to it’s owner, satan, so that the contamination wouldn’t be in the camp of the people. The other goat already having been sacrificed and its blood shed for
The sins of the people. I am simplifying this, but it is so important.
- Living Bible
Romans 3:25: “For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God's anger against us. He used Christ's blood and our faith as the means of saving us from his wrath. In this way he was being entirely fair, even though he did not punish those who sinned in former times. For he was looking forward to the time when Christ would come and take away those sins.”
- New King James
2 Corinthians 5:21: "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Just think about it, Jesus who knew no sin became sin. He became my sin, your sin that we could be set free!