Weekly Bread

What does it mean to be free from sin? First of all, we are not free to sin but free from sin. It has never been the will of God for man to be controlled, ruled over, or dominated by any one or anything. His intentions were for man to have the freedom to choose for himself to walk with Him and have dominion over all creation. Within the sphere of the privilege of choice lies the power of freedom and communion with God. But to choose what God forbids as Adam and Eve did, opened the door for man to become enslaved. It’s not God who enslaved them, but the nature of sin and the curse of death. All that had been placed under the authority of Adam began to spiral downward. He lost control of all he was to rule over, and it began to rule over him. His very heart or nature began to manifest things that opposed life and blessing. His destiny was no longer on the course of enjoying freedom, but was constantly challenged by sin and death. The fellowship between God and man had been disrupted, separated and divided because of the choice that exceeded the boundaries of freedom. Sin and death had taken the place of rulership over man.

Romans 5:12 says,

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

Romans 5:14 says,

“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”

Man was unable to walk free from the dominion of sin apart, from Jesus dying for the sins of man. To be free from sin is to receive Jesus as Lord of your life. The role sin once played in our lives before the new birth has been broken, and we should never allow it to control us again. If we sin, there are rights and privileges that have been extended to us by God at the expense of Jesus. We have the privilege and responsibility of confessing and being forgiven and cleansed from the unrighteous act.

I John 1:9 says,

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We have been made free from sin, and we should never feel as if we must live under the weight and guilt sin brings. Sin is very painful and costly, if we choose to yield to and practice it.

Jesus conquered sin and passed His victory onto us, and now we can live free from sin.

May God’s blessing abound in your life,

In III John 2 we read;

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth”.

The Holy Spirit is showing us through John’s writing that a prosperous soul produces financial prosperity, peace, and good health. God has already made the provision through the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus; but it is only when we begin to renew our minds with His Word that we will attain God’s best. We must realize that God’s purpose for our lives was not to join a church or occupy our Sundays with religion; but it was actually to transform us into a new species of being, experiencing a higher quality of existence in the earth.

I believe the reason most Christians aren’t experiencing this higher quality of existence is because they have hung onto their old thoughts and attitudes, and have never renewed their minds with the Word of God.

In Isaiah 55:7-9 we read,

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God; for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God is telling us to put off our old thought-life and put on His thoughts so we can experience a higher quality of life. As Christians, we’ve gone to church, read the Bible and memorized scripture, and still live a lower quality of life and are defeated. We have tried to put the new on top of the old, and it doesn’t work. The old way of thinking always come back. For example, if I work all day and get sweaty and stinky, then go home and put clean clothes over my sweaty, stinky clothes, and you see me later on and think I look nice on the outside, but when you get around me, I will stink. I needed to take off the old clothes and put on the new clothes. Our spiritual life is the same way. We must take off our old thoughts and old ways and put on new thoughts and new ways by renewing our minds and meditating on God’s Word.

A prosperous soul realizes that being born again is an experience, but renewing the mind with God’s Word is a lifestyle.

The children of Israel didn’t experience God’s best because they didn’t forsake their old thoughts and ways. God took them out of Egypt, but He couldn’t take Egypt out of them. That was their part. When we become born again, God takes us out of the world; but now we must take the world’s ways and thoughts out of us and put on God’s thoughts and ways by renewing our minds.

In Matthew 16:25 we read,

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

As I close, let me encourage you to quit living life with your old thoughts and habits - it will cause you to miss out on God’s best. When we put off our old thoughts and old ways, and renew our mind and put on God’s thoughts and ways, we give up the lower quality of life (death, sin, sickness, poverty); and God gives us the higher quality of life (life, righteousness, health and prosperity). God always works from the inside to the outside. True prosperity always starts in the soul. When we give up the natural, we can partake of the supernatural.