FREE IN JESUS

When we start being truly filled with the Holy Spirit; we start becoming truly free in Christ Jesus. This filling starts in our intimate time with our Father, during prayer and quiet time with the Lord.

• Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

Jesus took our penalty, paid for it in our place and made all condemnation powerless to hurt us. No sin that we asked forgiveness for, can continue to condemn us. Condemnation can only come from unrepented sins, once sin is gone, why let the enemy condemn us?

• Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

The Lord Jesus overcame Satan and his demons at the cross. He dwells in us and He is greater than the master of this world.

• Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

People felt more confident in doing deeds in order to be saved, but as we see in this verse, all the rules that a person follows are just the shadow of eternity, meaning that they have no substance unto themselves. A shadow just makes one “think of” or “point to” something, but in fact, it amounts to nothing. The reality is Jesus Christ! Jesus is alive, is real and only in Him we can be saved. Only through Jesus' sacrifice that works in our lives after we receive Him as Lord in our hearts, are we counted clean, righteous and sinless.

• 1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

Our good deeds are coming because Jesus changed our hearts, after He gave us “new birth from His imperishable seed" which is alive and lasts forever.

• Colossians 2:18-23 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations-- "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," which all concern things which perish with the using--according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

These verses speak for themselves. Any customs and deeds that come from the human flesh, and not of Christ, are not helping the believer to change and become more like Christ. Jesus is the only way to Heaven! He is the reality, not the shadow! We have to "remain in Him and He in us," so that we thrive and live according to God and not man!

Our Heavenly Father wants our hearts to beat with His. The Lord wants us to rest in Him, so He can teach us deep truths. He wants us to take His promises as our own, reading and studying the Bible more and more, so that He can reveal new things to us.

It is time for us to realize that Jesus is alive and that we need to take back what the enemy stole from us. It is time for us to realize that as long as Jesus dwells in us, the enemy has no power over us. It is so essential that we study the Bible, learning what God's will really is, learning what He likes and does not. By letting His Word “mold and shape us” so that “in Him and through Him” we truly live. By “knowing Him,” He truly sets us free!

• John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

• 1 John 5:20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

May we each truly know and thrive in our Lord Jesus Christ,

C. Puscas