ADVENT - “Free Us”
Happy Friday, and welcome back to our Advent Meditation series as we're spending the days leading up to Christmas reflecting on the life of Jesus Christ and the hope He brings. This week, our time has centered on why Jesus entered humanity; through it all, we've seen it was ultimately for His glory and our good. We'll touch upon this today as we consider the life-changing liberation an encounter with His love brings. Before we begin, I want to provide space for you to pause, pray, and thank God for the freedom found in Christ and its power to release you from bad habits, destructive thoughts, and hopelessness.
Luke 4 opens with Jesus' testing in the wilderness. For forty days and forty nights, the enemy tempted Jesus and tried to entice Him to give in and give up. Yet, in His most vulnerable state, Jesus stood firm and continued to declare a determined dependency on God. At every turn, He responded to every enemy's lie with the truth about the God He trusted. Finally, after this time of trial, Jesus heads back to his childhood hometown of Nazareth and, on the Sabbath, enters the synagogue for worship and begins reading from the book of Isaiah. Luke 4:18-21 captures this moment, and it says:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Very few words in the English language evoke more emotion than the word freedom. Something inside us feels liberated and joyful whenever we hear it or experience it firsthand. We picture chains being broken and the world's weight taken off our shoulders. So it is only natural for us to yearn to be free.
The 6th chapter of Romans speaks in great detail about how we were once slaves or prisoners to sin, but accepting what Christ did on the cross sets us free. The door to our jail cell of shame, fear, and judgment swung open; all we needed to do was hand our prisoner's jumpsuit to Jesus on the way out. Yet, how many of us still have the orange jumpsuit tucked away somewhere deep in our closet or take it out and wear it from time to time? We don't know what it is, but something keeps us from stepping into that freedom of mind, body, and soul. The longer we keep this jumpsuit in our possession, the greater the pull we will feel to go back to our old lifestyle. In essence, we are helping put back on the very chains that Christ went to the cross to break for good.
The reason we find ourselves dealing with the same old struggles time and time again is that we are suffering from a case of mistaken identity. This piece of clothing symbolizes our old condition, not our new identity in Christ. Our sinful nature might always be a part of us, but we are no longer obligated to sin - our freedom now found in God's truth. Rather than living under the constant pressure of trying to reach an unattainable standard (the law), God's grace covers us, which looks much better than that tacky, old orange jumpsuit.
REFLECT
Before we wrap up our time together, we want to provide you some space to respond to what we read and maybe to what God is trying to say to you. First, take a moment to process this question…Where do you still feel like a prisoner to your thoughts, actions, and emotions?
Another question to consider is this…What would it look like for you to walk in freedom in this area?
PRAYER
Father God, today I want to walk in Your freedom. May I see myself the way You see me. Help me to trust that the old is gone and the new has come. In Your name, Jesus. Amen.