Freedom in the Lord God

Jacob had twelve sons and among the twelve came Joseph who later saved his family from starvation. Though he was hated by his own brothers, he saved them from starving in Canaan and took them to Egypt where there was plenty of food. Now in Egypt there was a Pharaoh who helped them, doing everything they wanted because Joseph occupied a high position in Egypt. Later, that Pharaoh died and was replaced by another who did not like the Israelites, in fact, he enslaved them.

After suffering a long period of mistreatment, God, heard their cry and responded by giving them a prophet. – Moses,who led them out of slavery.

Having narrated a little of the story, let us draw attention to the main subject of freedom, this means exemption or immunity from a duty, or unrestricted use of a facility. In another concept, freedom is the freedom that comes from Christ who set us free. Stand firm then and do not let ourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery (Gal 5:1). This is warning us to use our freedom for the things of the kingdom of God. “’Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?’ Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:32-36). What a shallow-minded generation who rejected the truth from God through His son Jesus Christ. If there are brothers and sisters who still think like the stiff-necked Jews, please search your hearts and surrender yourselves to God through His son. This people thought that Jesus was talking about freedom from wars, slavery and many other things, but he meant the slavery of sin. We still struggle with it every day of our lives.

The freedom that most of us have in our countries was obtained by many people, even sacrificing their lives. Let us take the example of Zambia which was colonised by Great Britain from 1926 to 1953. The Zambian people thought about the importance of being free and decided to form their own government. They needed to fight a war which led to much bloodshed and many people dying in this struggle for freedom.

But God has done much more for us by giving His only begotten soon so that we can become free from our sinful nature. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, God did not condemn the world, but saved the world through him whom he had sent (Jesus Christ)” (John 3:16,17).

Brothers and sisters, we all know that we naturally heirs of Adam and Eve’s sinful nature. That is why God gave Jesus, so that we can be free through his blood. The good Lord God has no boundaries for helping us when we give ourselves to Him. “In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me: I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The Lord is with me: he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies” (Ps 118:5-7). We may wonder about our past circumstance and how we were before we learnt about the true gospel. It does not matter to God whether we were slaves or noble when we were called (1 Cor 7:21-24)

Now this freedom, brothers and sisters, should not be taken for granted. Let us look at what happened to Adam and Eve. The two were given freedom to eat from any tree in the garden, but they were told not to eat of the tree which was in the middle of the garden. But having freedom to choose, they ate from it even though they were told not to (Gen 3:1-6).

After disobeying the command of God, He punished them and they were banished from the Garden of Eden. The cheater, the serpent, was also cursed for telling lies which led to the ending of the freedom of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:23-24).

Finally, we sometimes tend to think that it only happened to those of old times, and it cannot happen to us. We deceive ourselves if we think like this. Remember, we can use our freedom to do wrong things, illicit things such as robbery and murder, so that we are arrested, thrown into prison or even killed. So let us avoid bad company or using our freedom unwisely. The only true and correct freedom we can have is from God through His son Jesus Christ. God can give us freedom, which no money can buy because all things that we may need are found in him. The challenge is to us to choose what we want to have (Deut 30:19,20).

Bro Stephen Siamabi

Bro Stephen Siamabi (Lusaka, Zambia)