For Freedom I have Set You Free (Part 1)

For freedom, I have set you free.

We are in Guatemala!!! 

The Lord has been walking me through personal and spiritual freedom and healing since arriving here in Guatemala about three weeks ago. I am learning that in order to truly walk in freedom, you first must know your identity. During a teaching on identity recently I learned and realized some new things about myself, and who the Lord has created me (and all humans) to be. 

As a human and a child of God, being made in the image of God, I am made up of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. The body includes both the physical body, flesh and bone (called the soma), as well as the human nature or the part of you that opposes God (called the sarx). The soul is composed of mind, will, and emotions. It contains the personality and all that makes a person unique. And spirit is literally the person of God living within us. It is the born-again nature of us. The question of “what is your spirit?” is equivalent to the question “who is God?”. Your spirit connects you directly to God and actually IS God. And because the Spirit of God is living within us and actually makes up part of our very being, the sarx part of your body, the cardinal and fallen nature of man, no longer has any control over us and is actually dead. Romans 6:6 says that our old self is crucified with Christ, meaning that the space sin took up in our body has become nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to it. And then in verses 10-11 it says that because Christ died to sin and then conquered it, we also get to consider ourselves dead to sin and now alive in Christ! This means that we are no longer chained to the old way of life, but now are chained to God and get to live in the life and freedom He offers us through our bondage to Him, and the space that sin took up in the body is now occupied by freedom of Christ. 

This realization meant a few new things for me: 

1. Because I am a part of God, I am already who He has created me to be. There is no longer any striving to become this perception of who I think God wants me to be because I am already made in His perfect image and have His perfection living inside of me! Not to say there isn’t refining and growing, because there for sure is. But I can never disappoint God with who I am because He actually makes up the essence of who I am!

2. Nothing I can say or do can combat this truth. Colossians 1:22 says, “he has now reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,”. He calls me righteous and holy and there’s nothing I can do to change that. Is not the truth of God so much higher than my truth? His words are everlasting, and mine are only fleeting. So how dare I even think anything less than righteousness of myself because that is truly what the Lord has said of me. My truth is nothing compared to His. 

3. Knowing God is walking in my identity. The more I know Him, the more I understand the truth of who He has created me to be. 

Is this not just the most exciting and freeing truth?!

In learning all of this, and truly letting it change my thinking, the Lord has allowed me to step into a new measure of freedom I have never experienced before. He is healing my heart in struggles that I have lived under my entire life. He is challenging me in new ways with stepping into boldness and faith within leadership in my team, learning to show Christ to all the people around me, and He is using me in ways I would have never imagined for myself previously. And, none of it is for me but it is all for His glory! 

Ezekiel 36:26 says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from you flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” 

This is what Christ is able to do when we begin to let down our guard and walk in the identity He has given us. His desire has always been for restoration and wholeness. We get to walk in the freedom He provides and the truth of who He is as it becomes our identity. 

I pray you’re encouraged by what I am learning and get to experience this new measure of life and freedom as well. Our God is just so good and beautiful and I am beyond blessed to get to learn from Him in this beautiful country and experience all that He is. 

It is truly for freedom that He has set me free, and oh how sweet it is. 

(Part 2 on the way!)