Sustained By Responsibility

‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls’ Matt.11:28-29.

We are born with an innate desire to be free. A little boy will refuse help from his parents because he wants to be free to wear his shoes the way he wants even though he will mix them up. With teenagers the desire becomes very pungent and most times it is expressed in the desire to break every rule. We try to push our boundaries here and there even at work. It is that innate desire to be free that pushes us to celebrate Friday’s [TGIF]. Unfortunately when we step out of the bounds God has put around us in order to be free sometimes we end up in bondage. For instance, a family man out of a desire to be free refuses to go to work for a month. He might be free to do as he pleases for the first three weeks but by the fourth week when the bills come knocking he will be in trouble. Married people often express the desire to be free from their spouses. My response is it’s too late, you cannot be free, what God has joined together stays together. God does not mean for our marriages to be like prisons. God expects us to even have freedom in our marital relationships and I pray God will show us how. We will not walk out on God’s placement into bondage thinking we are walking out of confinement into liberty. The problem sometimes arises because we never really give thought or differentiate between independence and freedom; between liberty and freedom; between deliverance and freedom. We need to see the difference between independence and freedom. Many times we are seeking freedom but we end up with independence and discover it is not enough because independence is liberty, it is deliverance, it is instantaneous. But freedom always starts with independence, deliverance, and liberty but freedom is sustained by responsibility. So if you have independence without requisite responsibility to shoulder it you end up in bondage. However, God really wants us to be free so there must be a way to be free with God. Over the next few days we will discover how to be truly free, as God desires for us.

Prayer: Father, I ask for the grace to stay within the boundaries that You have placed around me. The grace to learn from You how to be truly free, in Jesus Name.