“Stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has set us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).
Paul was writing to a church. He didn’t want Christians coming under bondage.
All of us were once in bondage. We were slaves of sin and blind to God. When we trusted in Christ we were born again and set free from this bondage.
God wants us to continue in this freedom.
In order to continue in this freedom, we must stand firm. If we don’t stand firm, we will become slaves. It is possible for Christians to become slaves.
Paul was writing to the Galatians. These Christians were going into the bondage of false teaching. They were following practices from the Old Testament like circumcision and dietary regulations. Today false teachings bring many Christians into bondage. To be free from the bondage of false teachings, we need to know the word of God.
There are many types of bondage we can come under.
God wants us to be free from Satan.
He wants us to be free from bondage to sin. “Sin will not have dominion over you” (Romans 6:14).
God wants us to be free from limitations: “with God all things are possible.”
God wants us to be free from the need to conform to the world. We don’t need to keep up with the Joneses, we need to keep up with the Spirit of God.
God wants us to be free from Mammon. We don’t need to be slaves to money, worrying about money all the time. Jesus said he would provide what we need as we seek first his kingdom.
The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They built Pharoah’s buildings and were miserable. Whips cracked over them and they were weighed down with burdens from their masters. One day God showed up and broke the power of their masters. They were free!
Moses brought them out of Egypt by the power of God. There was great potential before them and a glorious land waiting for them to enter. But they were unable to see this potential. They couldn’t trust God. They wanted to go back to Egypt and become slaves again! Then they died as they wandered around the wilderness. This is what happens when God’s people come into bondage again.
Jesus was anointed by God to set the captives free and open the prison doors (Isaiah 61:1). We were all once prisoners in Satan’s prison, but Christ crushed Satan’s head and brought us out. Satan’s whip could no longer crack over our heads, and his burdens no longer needed to bruise our backs.
“He whom the Son sets free is free indeed” (John 8:38). True liberty can only come from Jesus Christ.
We were set free by the Holy Spirit.
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
The Holy Spirit made us new on the inside and brought us out from the bondage to sin.
When the church comes together under the authority of Christ, Jesus is there. This powerful presence of Jesus can set people free. Sometimes the presence of the Lord is in a place to bring deliverance (Luke 5:17).
To the extent that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, to that extent we will experience liberty. We need to continue in this liberty from the Holy Spirit.
The word of God sets us free.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32).
All lies are from Satan, the father of lies. When we believe lies, they bring us into bondage. The truth is the word of God. The word of God is living and powerful, and it can set us free from lies.
We need to look into the perfect law of liberty in order to be set free (James 1:25). The perfect law of liberty is Christ and his teachings. When we follow Christ and his teachings, we are set free. We are set free by obeying God’s word, not just by hearing it.Jesus has already set us free. He doesn’t want us to go back and become “entangled in a yoke of bondage.”
When we get entangled in something, we get stuck. It’s like the thorns and thistles that choke the word of God that Jesus warned us about. It’s possible to be entangled in spiritual vines and ropes. It’s possible to be caught in a Satanic trap. God doesn’t want his people to be entangled. He wants us free.
A yoke is something heavy and firm put on the back of an ox so it can plow a field. Satan wants us to be slaves in his field. He wants us to keep sinning over and over again. The devil wants us to keep thinking about the past and getting miserable about it. He doesn’t want us going forward into the future with God. He wants us to doubt God. He wants us to desire the world and the things in the world. He lies to us so he can put a yoke on our backs and get us entangled. With a yoke on our backs, we are not free to serve God. We will not be happy.
God wants every yoke to be broken off the back of his people. He wants us completely free from all bondage.
““Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).
Christ died to set us free. Our inheritance is liberty.Sometimes Christians may get yokes of the enemy put on their backs. We may not be as free as we should be.
Jesus is the only solution. He set us free once, and he can do it again.
“The yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil” (Isaiah 10:27).
The anointing of God breaks yokes. We need to come into the presence of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit will shatter the yokes of the devil.
Jesus says if we are weary and heavy laden, we can come to him. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. We will find rest for our souls (Matthew 11:29-30). Christ’s yoke is the only yoke we want on our backs. This yoke is easy because Christ is in the yoke with us.
God does not want us to be in bondage. Jesus came to set us free. Jesus set us free when we first trusted in him and became born again. He wants us to continue in that freedom. To do this, we must stand firm.
If we have come into bondage, there is only one solution: Christ. We need to come to him, and ask him to break the yokes of bondage. He will do it again. He will set us free by his word and Spirit.
Lincoln House Churches 