Galatians 5:1 Freedom
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

By Marni Montanez

Galatians 5:1  New Living Translation

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

I inquired of the Lord, asking why I felt so agitated and trapped inside of myself lately.  It seemed like I was encased in some kind of quicksand and could not pull myself out.  I said to the Lord, I am looking for something. What is it I am looking for?   He uttered one word “freedom."  I knew I heard well because this word struck my heart as something that I craved, but never truly experienced. It was a foreign word trying to make it’s way into my suffocated being.  I truly didn’t understand the full meaning of what I was sensing , but I did know that I was intimately acquainted with what felt like an imprisonment; Imprisonment of the soul.   

In my life I have gone through many versions of healing, and still after all these years I can sense the workings of this oppressive manifestation hovering over me like an animal of prey ready to pounce and devour.  Yes, I am shielded from evil’s lies; protected under the shadow of the Great wings of my God, but this is a truth that has not completely broken through to my inner being.  He endues me with power and gives me the authority over darkness.  My gifts bring fear into the enemy’s camp and I am trusted with the keys of heaven.  And yet I am plagued with this feeling of being captured and made to endure the close quarters of ignorance. Why is this so?

It is because of what and who I am believing.  It is because in many areas I have chosen to believe the enemy’s lies over my God’s truth.  I see my weaknesses and my enemy is fully aware of them also.  God reaches for me to hold me and move me out of these weaknesses but the flesh can sometimes be so strong and when I catch a glimpse of my inadequacies in the mirror of hatred and distortion, I believe it.    This is my downfall.

My freedom is in Christ and with each revelation that breaks down the barriers I’ve built up around me and that have kept me hidden, this freedom will enter my soul and spread throughout my being.  I must learn to believe what He says about me.  I must learn to divert the eyes of my heart when the enemy holds up the mirror of deception.  If I continue to look, I will continue to be enslaved by trying to be good enough, but if I only look into the mirror that God is holding up, my soul will heal of the prolonged self abuse and I will see clearly the truth of who I am.  In Christ I am free because He lives in me and He is love, giving grace and mercy to all who accept Him.
 
Challenge: Ask God to show you who you are in Christ.
 
God Bless
Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.