Month: June 2018

As we approach July 4^th and celebrate the freedom of our country, it is also a good time to celebrate God’s gift to us of freedom from sin and death.

Today’s verse follows this theme of independence.  Galatians 5:1 says:

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

Paul, is not saying that the law is bad or evil.  In fact, the truth is completely opposite – all of the law was God-breathed and is still law of the Jewish people.

The problem was that people focused too closely on the “letter of the law” and not the spirit of the law.  Many Jews forgot that their first duty was to love God but many tried to impress others with their knowledge of the law.  For many, the law separated them from God instead of drawing them closer to Him.

God’s first priority is and always has been to draw us closer to Him.  Since the covenant of the law was actually driving people away, His answer was to establish a new covenant, the covenant of the blood.

In order to do so, God came to Earth in human form as Jesus.  He suffered unspeakable pain and humiliation which was followed by His death on the cross.  This is how He bought our salvation and created the Covenant of the blood (His blood).

So now we’re free, right?  Well, not necessarily.  Even though our freedom has been won, we still have to accept it.  Later in chapter 5, Paul talks about other things that could enslave us and separate us from God.  If Paul was writing about this today, he might add social media, politics, certain websites, and materialism as modern-day enslavements.

Truly freedom of any kind isn’t free.  Even our salvation, which is a gift freely offered by God, has to be accepted before we can actually achieve freedom.

• What is your definition of freedom?
• If freedom is so valuable, why do we sometimes seem to welcome slavery in various forms?
• What are some common “enslavements” that keep them from enjoying true freedom?
• What is something you and your family can do on July 4^th to celebrate God’s gift of freedom from sin and death?

Here is a link to a story from James Dobson talking about a talking scale that he received as a gift from his staff: https://goo.gl/wqycY9

He says that one day the scale said that he had gained 80 pounds from the previous day.  Knowing this was an error, he got off and tried it again.  This time it said he had lost 50 pounds from the previous day.  Dr. Dobson tried it one more time and the scale said “my batteries are low” to which he responded “I know buddy, mine are too”.

Today’s verse is from Mark 6:31 and follows this theme:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Jesus could have performed a miracle and given his disciples unlimited energy and strength in this moment but he told them to take a break and get some rest.  He was giving them a model for how to respond to stress and fatigue.  Can you imagine being on this team of disciples?  Every day, all day, they were just trying to keep up so of course they needed rest from time to time.

We’re exactly the same way but few of us stop to recognize it.  Or if we do recognize it, we ignore it.  If you are like me, an evening with nothing planned is an opportunity to plan something.  We constantly need to “get things done” or have new experiences.  No time for rest.  No time for ourselves.

What would you do if you were given a 100% guilt-free pass for an afternoon or even a day?  Golf, fishing, see a movie, read a book, or maybe walk around in nature with no particular destination?  In keeping with our lesson on intentionality from a couple of weeks ago, why not plan ahead a little and put something on the calendar?

Here are a few questions to further explore this topic:

• On a scale from 1-10, how well charged are your batteries?
• What are the main things that charge your batteries and the main things that drain them?
• What are some of the negative consequences of having low batteries?
• If you had a free afternoon or day as discussed above, what would you do to charge your batteries?
• How will our family and loved ones benefit from our batteries being more fully charged?