A Christ Follower: The Journey

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1a      To experience freedom from your past begins with believing what God says about you.  You will not know freedom, if you worry about what others think of you. You must know that, in Christ Jesus, you are accepted, filled with worth, deeply loved by the Lord, and you matter to him.  You are significant to him. When Jesus completed his supernatural freedom producing redemptive work, he meant it when he said on the Cross, "It is finished!" One of the single most important things you must believe is the truth that you are indeed free!  John says it this way, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  (John 8:32.) SoJourner

I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live. Yet not I , but it is Christ Jesus who lives within me. For the life that I live in this body, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20       Something supernatural happened to all who follow Jesus.  We were all crucified with him, individually and collectively.  Many have read Galatians 2:20, and have said to themselves, "I sure wish I was the kind of person who can honestly say that."  Well you can be and are that kind of person: Paul is NOT saying that "it's as if I were crucified with Christ." He is actually saying this is what happened to you and me when Jesus died on the cross.  We didn't make it happen.  God did, and we benefitted from God in action. Just as the two thieves or zealots were there next to Jesus on the day of his crucifixion, so was every other person who believes in him.   And like one of those thieves we ha...

The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distress. Psalm 25:17       Unlike our day to day emotions, which come as the result of the way we think, emotional baggage, from our distant and recent past, become deeply ingrained in the neurobiology  of our memory.  If it is left alone, it can become accumulating "baggage," which will control you and maybe even be hurtful to you.  It is only as you face the pain of  what's done, grieve it,  detach and witness the bad behavior, make yourself safe, refuse to let them hurt you, and then forgive from the heart those who have stepped on your heart, that you can release them to the Lord.  Then you can fully receive from God the experience of complete freedom in Christ Jesus.   SoJourner