Freedom from Bondage is Your Choice

Many Christians wait on the Lord to drop the answer to their prayers out of the sky, and when it doesn't happen, they say God has forgotten them. But that is not the case. For the truth about God's love for us, we have to look at our choices.


God gave us free will. It is our choice to follow God's commandments, and when we do, we prosper and live under God's protection. Proverbs 10:22 tells us that, The blessings of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. On the other hand, it is our own choice to follow Satan, who tempts us with evil, then rewards us by killing, stealing and destroying us.

How do we choose to follow the commandments of the Lord? We must first accept Christ as Savior and Lord. Then, we are Christians. That is when the spirit man in us becomes a new creature. Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

Even though our spirit man has become a new creature in Christ Jesus, it is only the correct choices of our soul that keep us from sinning and displeasing God. When Paul speaks of all things having become new, he is talking about the spirit man, not the natural man or the physical body. This lets us that we have to allow the spirit of God and the Word of God to rule our bodies because our bodies are not redeemed and cannot be trusted.

The flesh is ruled by the soul-our intellect, our mind. The flesh will do anything we allow it to do because it has not been changed. There can be outward changes in physical habits when we accept Christ as Lord-people do stop drinking, cursing, smoking, chasing women or men, and lying-but only the inner man takes on the nature of Christ by being born again.

The true man is the spirit man, the one who takes on Christ's nature when we accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. We have to use our free will to accept Him and have the righteousness of Christ operate in our lives.

The soul man is our mind, will, emotions and intellect. Satan tries to tempt us by suggesting to our mind to yield to our carnal man, which has not been changed. Our soul man stands between our spirit man and our carnal man, and whichever man is stronger that is the one we yield to. That is why the Word tells us in Romans 12:2 to renew our minds with the Word of God, then we will yield to the spirit and not to the flesh.

Renewing our minds come by hearing the Word of God, practicing the Word of God, memorizing the Word of God and speaking the Word of God. Understanding the makeup of man may better help us understand the part man's will plays in freeing him from Satan's bondage.

The physical man is made up of our senses-seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Our goal must be to have the physical man come in line with the spirit man, which means we have to submit our ways to the ways of God. The soul makes the choices and tells the body what to do-rightly or wrongly. That is why we must constantly renew our minds so that the soul makes the right choices, being able to say, "No, I will not steal, kill, fornicate, commit adultery. My body is the temple of the living God. I cannot sleep with that woman's husband. I will not load my plate with that pie because my body does not need it. Sexual intimacy must wait for marriage."

The body only comes in line with the Word of God when the soul has been trained to obey the teachings of Christ through the spirit man.

So what must we do to bring ourselves in line with God's Word? We must recognize that Satan constantly brings temptation, because he is waging war to keep us in bondage. To break that bondage, we have to see ourselves as God sees us according to His Word. God sees us as the righteousness of Christ. He views us as more than conquerors. That means that through Him we have conquered disease, poverty, fear, strife and all the evil that Satan tries to bring against us.

Once we see ourselves according to God's Word, Satan can no longer whip us, or defeat us. But even when we are speaking the Word, we have to keep our eyes on the flesh. Paul had to discipline his body, and he was always speaking God's Word. He writes in 1 Corinthians 9:27: But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Discipline takes time and effort. It is an every-hour, every-minute, every-second job to ward off the temptations of the evil one. However, the great rewards of doing so is truly freedom unspeakable and full of glory!