Living Free

Years ago, when she was a student at Chico State, my daughter came over for a visit. With her head in the refrigerator, she remarked: "Nothing ruins a good book like having to read it for a class!" In one breath she captured the human condition.

Reading a good book is a joy. So why does being required to read it kill the joy? The answer lies at the heart of what it is to be a sinner. “I was once alive apart from the law,” wrote the Apostle Paul, “but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died” (Rom. 7:9-11).

When a commandment appears, up pops the defiant head of rebellion, ready to poison our best pleasures.

In the flesh, autonomy is king. We think of ourselves as free, yet we are dominated by our worldly desires, our physical urges, and our unrestrained personalities. We resent doing what we’ve been told we should or must do, even when we would happily have done it on our own. So we resist, or, when the fear of consequences outweighs the benefits, we submit grudgingly, joylessly. But Christ is calling us to a different kind of life. He is calling us to freedom, not from authority, but from the domination of our flesh:

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-6).

Christians, we are called to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. For it’s by the Spirit that we submit, like Christ, to God’s word, even to the point of suffering. We do this not grudgingly, like slaves, but lovingly, as sons. All for the singular joy of seeing and experiencing His glory.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:12-17).

This article was originally published here.