The Cost of Freedom - Part 4 of 4

I’m sure that you can tell by now that Christian freedom is something that I place a lot of value in and have put some thought into. I believe that once we fully grasp these truths about the costs and benefits of the true freedom that the Christian life provides, our lives will be richer and more impactful. For our last look at this subject, we are going to address the most important aspect of Christian freedom of all - our freedom from sin.

As believers, we know that God sent his son Jesus to die for us. He became the sacrifice for our sins and we no longer have to follow the rituals and customs under Old Testament law for forgiveness. We are free of having to keep the law in order to earn our salvation. We now have a new covenant with God as a result of Jesus’ death on the cross. True Christian’s with a “saving faith” are covered under God’s grace for all of our sins - past, present and future. As a result, we have salvation and eternal life with God for the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. That is the cost and benefit of our freedom from sin.

In light of the above, there are a couple of key questions that I want to address:

Since we have freedom from sin, what should our attitude be toward sin? Should we even worry sin at all?

I believe that one simple concept, along with the scripture below, helps put this matter in the right perspective:

The Christian life is freedom from sin - not freedom to sin.

Yes, we are still going to fall short and sin - and yes, we are forgiven by God’s grace for our sins. In spite of that, it doesn’t mean that we should ever get comfortable having sin in our lives. There are many reasons why but first and foremost is because God hates sin and our hearts should be aligned with His so that we hate it as well.

There are many warnings about getting comfortable with sin in scripture:

Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature: rather, serve one another in love.

1 Peter 2:16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants for God.

In these passages we are being instructed not to use our freedom from sin as freedom to sin but to serve/love God and each other - the two greatest commandments. A saving faith will condition our hearts in such a way that we have a desire to be obedient and to please God.

Stay hungry,

Big E