Freedom

OMG.

Okay, so I started this new bible study titled In-Security, and I just have to share with y’all what it’s about.

It’s just so filled with truth, and I can feel God working through it in my heart. I cannot NOT share with you ladies!

It’s about freedom.

Oh! Before I start, I just want to tell you that you were made to be free. You were made to live in the freedom of Jesus Christ and in close relationship with God.

You were never made to live in fear of what others think. You were never meant to live with anxiety over tomorrow, or trapped in sin.

You were made to live intimately with God.

Okay. Let’s get rollin’.

So, the enemy’s purpose on this Earth is to keep people in sin and away from Jesus. That’s just what he does. As Christians, we already know Jesus.

That infuriates the enemy. He knows he’s lost. He knows we are going to heaven and he’s going to be destroyed and he’s angry. He’s going to try and take as many people down with him as he can.

Even though we are already saved and he can’t prevent us from going to heaven, he wants to stop us from growing in our relationship with Jesus.

He wants to stop us from speaking the truth to others.

His new goal is to keep us stagnant in our faith.

One of the way he does that is by keeping us trapped in bondage, sin, depression, fear, anxiety, bitterness, caring what people think, self-destructive behavior, insecurities, and (here comes the big one) lies.

We are dangerous to the enemy when we live in freedom, and he knows that.

If we lived without fear, nothing could stop us from spreading the word about Jesus.

He will do everything he can to keep us from doing that.

That’s where the lies come in.

He uses lies and he attacks your identity and insecurities.

With insecurity comes bondage and no real sense of identity. Without a real sense of our identity, it’s easy to believe the lies the enemy feeds us on a daily basis.

Plus, insecurity keeps us from living life to the fullest. It keeps us from living out our life like God designed for us.

Our insecurities are actually lies that we have believed about ourselves our whole life.

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (NIV)

This is probably one of my favorite verses in the bible. It shows that Jesus came not only to save our lives, but to give us life.

I’m about to hit y’all hard, so pay attention.

Jesus did not hang on the cross so that you would be held back by the fear of what others think of you.

He did not bleed and suffer so you could live a mundane life with no passion or love or relationship with Him.

I don’t know about y’all, but the idea of a life with no meaning does NOT appeal to me.

I want to live a life full of passion and love and JESUS.

I want a life filled with His light and His purpose and sharing all that with others.

What’s the point of life without Him, anyway?

The truth is your identity is found in Jesus and what He did for you on the cross.

You’re identity is not found in your accomplishments or failures.

It’s not found in people you spend time with, or even the thoughts you have of yourself.

It is found in the Creator of our souls.

He knows everything about you: your sins, your fears, your worries, your thoughts, and He still loves you.

No matter what you’ve done or what you will do, Jesus loves you.

Nothing this world can say or do to you will change that.

Yes, words hurt. I understand that.

Yes, rejection hurts. I get that too.

But you know what hurts worse? A life without Jesus.

A life filled with doubt and fear.

A life filled with worry of what others think or say about you.

You know what else? Jesus can take away that fear and doubt. He will fill that space with love and passion.

He can take away that worry and fill it with peace and an assuredness of who you are in Him and of Who He is.

The devotional totally threw a curveball my way when it went to this next point.

It asked: Do you want to be free?

I totally scoffed at it. Like, really? Of course, I want to be free! Everyone wants to be free.

But then I thought about how many times I felt content to mope around the house when I was sad. I thought about how my mom would try to cheer me up, but I would shrug her off because I wanted to be sad. Or how I would be so angry, and refuse to let it go. I would hold onto that anger even through my mom’s threats of punishments (which turned out to be promises BTW) because I wanted to be angry.

Did you hear that?

Is that not how everyone feels every once in awhile?

You hold onto your self-pity, jealousy, anger because you want too. You choose too.

Sometimes we find a false sense of security in our insecurity. (BTW, that came from the devo. I didn’t make up that totally cool, totally true statement.)

We become comfortable with those detrimental feelings. We think that it will always be that way, and we don’t even try to be free.

It seems like such a silly question, do you want to be free, but it has the power to change your life.

If you want to be free, and you dig deep into God’s word and His presence, nothing in this world can stop you.

Not other people’s opinions, not the enemies lies, nothing.

Freedom has always been close to my heart, and I think I know why.

I haven’t told you ladies this yet, but I’ve written on my church blog about my struggles with anxiety. Well, I call it worry on the church blog, but I’ll be a little more open with y’all. That anxiety kept me trapped for years. I would worry about everything. What I wore, school work, what people thought of me, athletics, family life. Anything and everything you could worry about, I would.

That worry kept me trapped for years, and it was a big rift in my relationship with Jesus. You can’t have worry and Jesus. It just doesn’t work that way. I felt the chains that anxiety covered me with. The chains weighed down my heart, and the worry surrounded me like a dark cloud. All I ever wanted was not to worry.

I wanted freedom. I craved it, and I went looking for it in all the wrong places.

But, you want to know what I’ve discovered? Freedom doesn’t just come from Jesus. 

Freedom isn’t found men, or clothes, or shoes (no matter how cute they are).

Freedom isn’t found in college or your great new job.

Freedom isn’t found in your cozy house or even in your beautiful children.

Freedom is found in one place, in one person. Jesus.

I mean, He broke free from the grave. Jesus is the definition of freedom!

When you ditch the lies and insecurities and crave to be free, it’s then that you can live In-Security with Him.

Kylee Sutherland is a Texas girl who has a heart for Jesus, writing and people. She loves to laugh and eat rocky road ice cream (not necessarily at the same time). Kylee prays God uses her passion for writing to touch the hearts of those who read it and that they see her transparency as a way to relate and accept God's grace He freely gives each of us.