This post is part of the Christian Writer’s blog chain. Our theme for July is “Freedom.” I am posting every Wednesday in July on this theme. Click on the links to the right to see what my friends have to say about freedom.
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Have you been to the Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC? Like the other memorials in our capital—the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Memorial—it is beautiful and moving.
Unlike those other memorials, the Korean War Memorial has a personal feel to it. You can interact with the Korean War Memorial—walk among the statues of the soldiers, see their expressions etched in granite, touch the water flowing over the edge of the reflecting pool, and finger the carved words, “Freedom Is Not Free.”
As Christians we talk about our freedom in Christ. We are free from the penalty of sin when we have asked and received forgiveness through Christ.
We are free to live in and through Jesus every day; knowing that we are free from our pettiness when we rely on Him.
We are free from compulsion and doubt by means of the counsel, guidance and help of the Holy Spirit, freely given to us.
All these freedoms and more are ours when we claim Christ as our savior.
But our freedom was bought. The price was the cross. Jesus paid it when he set aside his divinity and became human for our sake. He paid it by being away from his Father’s presence for 33 years. He paid it by being wrongly accused. He paid it by being humiliated. He paid it by suffering physical torture. He paid it by dying the most horrible death imaginable then or now.
Nor was it free for Father God. The Father loved Jesus. He knew the sacrifice, the pain, the humiliation, the death that was in store for Jesus. Imagine how you feel watching your child suffer. How much worse knowing it was your plan. Our Heavenly Father paid the cost of the pain and let it happen just as He had ordained. The plan was perfect. The plan was good. But the plan came with a cost.
Our freedom wasn’t free to Jesus or to our Father. It is only free to us. Followed by the free gift of the Holy Spirit. Our salvation is a gift, freely given; but not freely accomplished.
Freedom isn’t free.
PRAYER: Thank you for the cross, Jesus. Thank you for your plan, Father. Thank you for your presence, Holy Spirit. We acknowledge we are unworthy of these gifts and that although they are free to us, they were bought at a great price. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? What other freedoms in Christ do you recognize in your life?
