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Freedom Is Not Having The Right To Choose To Do Whatever You Want.
Freedom Is Having The Ability To Do What Is Right.
Francis Schaeffer
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“The Spirit Of The Lord Is On Me, Because He Has Anointed Me To Preach Good News To The Poor.
He Has Sent Me To Proclaim Freedom For The Prisoners And
Recovery Of Sight For The Blind, To Release The Oppressed,
To Proclaim The Year Of The Lord’s Favor.”
Isaiah 61 And Luke 4
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It Is A Fact That The Opposite Of A Truth Is A Lie, And Anyone In Bondage To Sins Or Addictions Of Any Kind No Matter How Spiritual They Seem To Be, Is As The Above Scripture Says, They Are Still “Poor In Spirit,” Still A “Prisoner” Within Their Own Soul.
Many Of Us Know And Understand Scripture Extremely Well, We Know The Bible From Cover To Cover And Will Gladly Die For It, Saying It Is The Absolute Truth, Saying It Is The “Word Of God.” Yet We Are Still Spiritually “Blind,” If We Choose To Keep Any Sins Within Our Hearts Alive. Often Our Minds Can Be Packed With Memorized Bible Verses Revolving Around The Word “Freedom, And Yet We Are Still Spiritually “Oppressed.”
So To Understand “Truth,”” First Let’s Take A Look At “Lies”.
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What Are “Lies”?
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Lies Are A Deception, And According To The Wikipedia Dictionary:
A Deception Is The Act Of Convincing Another
To Believe Information That Is Not True,
Not The Whole Truth As In Certain Types Of Half-Truths.
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Where Do Lies Originate?
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According To Jesus, He Himself Calls Satan The
“Father Of Lies.”
It’s In John 8 Where He Says:
“…There Is No Truth In Him.
When He Lies,
He Speaks His Native Language,
For He Is A Liar And The Father Of Lies.”
And Today, Because Of Jesus Victory On The Cross, A Victory Over Sin And Death, “Lies” Are The
Only Weapon Satan And His Demons Have Left To Use Against Us.
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Now Concerning “Lies,” Bill Johnson Says:
“If You Believe A Lie,
You Give That Lie Power,
And
That Lie Will Still Be Very Much Alive Within You, Controlling You.”
And When A Lie Has Power, It Becomes A “Stronghold” Within Us And We Believe And Obey
Whatever That Lie Tells Us Because That Lie Becomes Truth To Us. And No One Can Convince Us
Otherwise, (No One, That Is, Except The Spirit Of Our God).
Some Examples:
My Mind Will Tell Me Pornography Is A Sin Of Idolatry,
Yet My Heart, If Deceived By It,
Will Want To Turn To It For Erotic Comfort And Pleasure.
_____________________
My Mind Will Tell Me Pornography Is Evil,
And Its Only Purpose Is To Destroy Me,
Yet My Heart,
Tells Me It Is The Only Place I Can Experience
The Acceptance I Hunger And Long For.
_____________________
My Mind Tells Me,
Viewing Pornography Is A Sin Against God,
Yet, Within My Heart,
I Allow A Door To Remain Open To It.
_____________________
The Reality Is, The “Sin” Could Be Anything
Substance Abuse – Abuse Of Food – Unhealthy Relationships – Anything
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So, As A Christian, I Have Been Taught To Deny That Sin, To Avoid It, To Abstain From It With My Will Power. Yet, Will Power Up Against A Hungry And Longing Heart Loses Out Every Time. So I Have A “Mind” That Is A Very Christian Mind But My “Heart” Has The “Walls Of Jericho” Still In Place Around It.
Now, To Abstain From Any Sin Is Good, For It Stops The Consequences That Always Follows A Sin. Yet, I Need To Learn That All Sin Sooner Or Later Has Negative Consequences And Is Always Fatal.
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So Is All This Knowledge And Understanding In My Mind Of Any Value?
Yes!
For It Is Scripture That Is The Primary Ingredient In The Transforming Of Our Mind – In The “Renewing Of The Mind” That Romans 12:2 Speaks Of. It Is When Scripture Is Seeded Within Our Hearts Through Prayer And The Illumination Brought About By The Work Of The Holy Spirit, In Our Lives. And The First Thing We Are To Do Is, Put On “The Mind Of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16.) For The Issue Of Freedom” Is A Heart Issue, In Other Words “Freedom” Always Takes Place Within The “Heart” First. We May Know “Of” Freedom Within Our “Mind,” But We Can Only “Experience” It Within Our Hearts.
What Does John 8 Say?
Then You Will Know The Truth, And The Truth Will Set You Free.
It Is Good For Your Mind To Know What It Knows, For This Is The First Half Of This Verse, But The
Second Part Of This Verse Is:
“…And The Truth Will Set You Free.”
And Again As Francis Schaeffer Says:
Freedom Is Not Having The Right To Choose To Do Whatever You Want.
Freedom Is Having The Ability To Do What Is Right.
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It’s Like This
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The Goal Of Lies Is To Lead Us Into: “Slavery,” But The Goal Of Truth Is To Lead Us Into:
Our Sonship – Our Inheritance – Our Destiny,
And Properly Walking In This “Freedom” Is The Life Our God Has For Us.
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Freedom Means:
Taking Responsibility For Your:
Attitudes – Motives – Thoughts – Words And Actions.
Freedom Means:
Making Right Choices.
Freedom Means:
Dealing Radically With Any Pride Or Unbelief Within Our Heart.
Freedom Means:
Properly Dealing With Any Sin In Our Life
And Knowing That It Is At The Cross That Our Father God
Wants Us To Deal With These Sins.
Also, Freedom
Is Appreciating The Price Paid On Our Behalf, For Our Redemption.
Therefore, It Is Always To The Cross We Go To Confess Our Sins And To Become
Pure – Clean – Holy.
This Is What It Means To Be “Sanctified.”
For In Going To The Cross, As Henry Blackaby Says:
“It Is In Appreciating What Happened At The Cross That We Learn To Hate Sin.”
And He Also Says That:
“The Purpose Of Embracing The Cross In Our Lives Is To Destroy The Sin In Our Lives.”
Freedom Also Means:
Understanding The Good News That Is Mentioned In Isaiah 61 And Luke 4
This Good News Is All About,
“What He Did On The Cross For Us.”
And Finally, Freedom Is
Learning How To Get Our Heart’s Hungers And Longings Met Legitimately.
How Do We Experience Freedom?
By An Active,
Vibrant,
Abundant,
Intimate Relationship
With The One Who Is “Truth” – Jesus!
And
With Our Father God,
Our Daddy!
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What Is It That We Should Take Away From This Meditation?
That We Can Know And Understand About
“Freedom”
Within Our
“Minds,”
But
The “Freedom”
Spoken Of Within Scripture
Is To Be
“Experienced” Within Our “Hearts.”
How Does This Happen?
As Ed Smith Says:
“Truth Must Go Down Into The Heart Before It Results In True Freedom,
And True Freedom Only Comes From Experiencing Jesus.”*
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