People in Wellington, Kansas celebrated our nation’s independence last night. (July 4, 2010)
Skies lit up over Seller’s Park and other areas of Wellington with bright, noisy displays of fireworks as residents grouped along the streets or in their backyards to watch. The displays were so numerous that many didn’t even have to leave their backyards. They viewed the sights from various directions as many created their own fireworks displays.
Wellington is fortunate to have this freedom, since not all States allow it. As a former New Yorker, this writer can assure those in Kansas that the freedom to purchase and personally use fireworks is something that not everyone can enjoy in America.
But freedom in Christ is.
John MacArthur of www.biblebb.com says that “Christ set us free to experience true freedom. Christian freedom is freedom of conscience, freedom from a legal system that couldn’t be kept. It is freedom from the depressing awareness that we can’t measure up to God. Christians do measure up in Christ. We have been “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians. 1:6).
“Christianity is not slavery to a religious system; it is absolute freedom,” continues MacArthur. “Christian freedom is not freedom to sin; it’s freedom from the power of sin…Freedom in Christ isn’t freedom to ignore the law; it’s freedom to fulfill the law.
“Christian liberty is not freedom to indulge the flesh, but the capacity to use self-control. It is also not freedom to injure others, but to love them by ministering to them…Christian liberty affects our relationship to self, others, and God.
“Freedom is to be expressed by the Christian through self-control, love of others, and obedience to God’s law.
“The operation of Christian liberty is not automatic. We must walk in the Spirit. Rather than being under the control of a legal system, the believer has the potential of being controlled by a Person: God the Holy Spirit.”
“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would…If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatian 5:16-25 KJV)
“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty…” (Galations 5:13 KJV)
Refer to:
http://associate.com/library/www.christianlibrary.org/authors/Charles_Burke/nt/p45.htm
http://www.openbible.info/topics/walking_in_the_spirit
http://bible.cc/galatians/5-1.htm
http://foresthillschurch.us/articles/25.htm
http://www.hurtingchristian.org/PastorsSite/otherscripture/2corin3-6-18.htm
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/sg1667.htm
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