Fear No Fear

“For freedom Christ freed us. Stand fast therefore and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1, MEV). God loved us enough to free us from disobedience. The human default is doing things our own way. We eat what we want. Read what we want. Watch what we want. Buy what we want. Save if we want. Live where we want. We solve our problems. And we pray that God will bring about what we want to be brought about – sometimes with the concession ‘if it be Your will’. We want what we want and we work our whole lives – with word, action, and prayer – to make it come about. That is the bondage that God wants us free of. The bondage of broken thinking. Broken motivation. And a lack of godly purpose. We have such a limited perspective. God isn’t limited like that. He can see how everything fits together overlaid on His plan overlaid on the devil’s schemes overlaid on human plans, dreams, and wishes. God sees EVERYTHING. Only God can know what to do in any given situation for His glory and the GOOD of everyone everywhere. So when we obey God, we are aligning ourselves with His goodness. We are aligning ourselves with His plan. We are aligning ourselves with His will. We are aligning ourselves with His glory. We are cooperating with Him when we obey. We are also freeing ourselves – through Jesus – from all the machinations of the devil and the world. It is a constant decision process. Every day in every way, we need to choose the freedom of Jesus. We need to choose the freedom of cooperating with God. We need to choose the freedom of obedience. Not MINDLESS obedience. An obedience based on an understanding of the Word, of God’s moral character, and of God’s nature. An obedience that rejects the chains of selfishness and fear, and accepts the freedom to be blessed and to bless others in love, from love, and because of love.