Grace For The Journey

  Today, I’d like to offer a word of encouragement about the Christian’s choice of freedom.

The Bible records Joshua saying in Joshua 24:15, “If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day Whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

The Bible makes it crystal clear that the freedom we experience every day in this life is a choice . . . and the choice is ours!  Every choice we make brings consequences with it.

Some matter little;

Some matter more;

And some matter most.

Joshua outlined the choice that matters most.

When was the last time serving the Lord seemed undesirable to you?  You might say, “I don’t remember such a time.”  OK, let me ask the question this way: When was the last time you went through a bout of man-centered anger?  Impatience?  Anxiety?  Selfish ambition?  How about serving the god of worldly success?  Do remember any times like that?

Every time serving the Lord seems undesirable, we undermine the freedom Christ purchased for us on the cross; we create chains of bondage that bind us to unbelief.

Any choice we make to run after something other than Jesus

Makes it clear that we simply don’t trust Him

To deliver on His promise that He is entirely

Sufficient to meet our every need.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:33 that are to. “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” and trust that “all these things will be given to you as well.”

We have the choice, moment by moment, to choose the God who is: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . . or the god we want.  When we choose the god we want we shrink the size of our life down to the size of our life . . . and that is no life at all!  To be sure, we may get exactly what we were after, but in doing so we may have missed the one thing we were designed by God to truly need . . . or perhaps I should say the One we were designed by God to need!

So as you enjoy your time tomorrow with family and friends celebrating Independence Day, prayerfully consider whom you will serve.  How easy it is for us to confuse life with death and freedom with slavery when we are sitting on the throne of our lives!  Why? Because when we create functional saviors for ourselves, we leave no room for God.

Our sinful nature will always push us to choose something other than Jesus.

The daily problem with sin is that it always seeks

Yo move us away from our Savior and toward the self.

And there is no freedom to be found in serving the self!

It is bondage of the worst kind when we place self on the throne of life.

It is living a life that promised freedom but in the end delivers only slavery.

The Bible gives us this stark warning in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

On this side of the grave, freedom is a choice – a choice we must make moment by moment.  But one day the conflict with sin will end and the need for choosing will be over.  There is a time coming when there will be only one choice and you will always choose it.  And you will experience a freedom – an independence – unlike any freedom you have ever experienced, a freedom that can only be found living in the presence of the everlasting God.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”