I Am No Longer A Slave

 This morning I stumbled across this song.  All I needed to see was the title to know that I liked it.  "NO LONGER SLAVES." Yes.  I could care less if that was the only lyric in the song, if it was acapella or if the guitar was out of tune.  This is truth to be celebrated in and sung from the top of my lungs...because I am no longer a slave.

-no longer a slave to walking into a worship service and judging others.
-no longer a slave to other peoples opinions over God's opinion of me.
-no longer a slave to fear of sharing exactly what God saved me from.
-no longer a slave to defending myself.
-no longer a slave to legalistic Bibliolatry.
-no longer a slave to facing hurts.
-no longer a slave to exposing evil thoughts that come through my mind.
-no longer a slave to avoiding prayer with my wife.
-no longer a slave to prideful thoughts that I am better than others.
-no longer a slave to tying my identity into my profession.
-no longer a slave to revenge.
-no longer a slave to putting my joy in winning an award.
-no longer a slave to my wife living up to an expectation I can't even keep.
-no longer a slave to displacing my sinfulness onto my children when they have done no wrong.
-and the list goes on and on and on...

You can see now why a song like this will almost immediately bring me to my knees.

Know this truth and meditate on it:

Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

John 8:32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Romans 6:18 And, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Romans 8:1-4 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Isaiah 58:6-7 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

James 1:25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:21 That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.