Are You Free

Greetings!!!

Did you do anything special on the Forth of July to celebrate your freedom? Our family went to see the fireworks display set off by Beaver Stadium at Penn State University. It made me think of all the battles fought, all the blood spilled, and all the lives lost to win my freedom. Have you ever thought about what it cost for you to be free? It was a high price.

Do you know that there is another kind of freedom? This freedom was even more costly. Here is what Romans 6:16-23 says: "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one who you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Have you been set free? How do you celebrate your freedom? If you have been set free from your past, you must choose to become a slave to the One who paid the price for your freedom - Jesus Christ. You see, when you have been set free, you become free to serve the One who can give your life meaning and purpose, and fill you with love, joy, and peace, and give you a future and a hope. It is worth giving up all that has you bound and keeps you from Him.

The LORD bless you with choosing to be His servant.

I love you,

Ruth