Catalyst Track: You Are Free // Day One

This track comes from Rebekah Lyons’ new book, You Are Free.

Many in the church cannot fathom the kind of freedom Christ’s pardon brings. We are so used to our prison cells, we don’t even know we are still in them! The doors are wide open—Christ tore them off the hinges two thousand years ago.

Many of us, though, still stand inside. My prayer is that we will begin to receive healing from our deepest wounds and discover that restoration brings true freedom.

As we abide in God’s presence, where he informs and sustains us, we can serve from a new place of freedom. Confession, whether it be a confession of repentance or a declaration of truth, begets freedom. There is no shortcut or strategy.

This is how we run free.

In this three-day track, Rebekah invites us on a journey of knowing the freedom we have already been given. Over the next couple of days, we will discover how Christ has made us:

• Set free
• Free to ask
• Free to pursue God’s mission in our lives

Leaders are often in the business of helping others walk out in their freedom. But do you know your own freedom? Do you live it? Do you serve from it?

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DAY 1: Set Free

 

Jesus doesn’t say you can be or may be or will be free. He says you are free. Therefore, we must declare—we must confess—truths like the following:

We are adopted heirs of the throne, sons and daughters of a King.

His love knows no bounds.8 It is an everlasting, all-consuming fire invading our hearts and minds when we allow it, and it turns our worlds upside down.

No amount of loss or sadness or rejection separates us from his great and marvelous love.

No amount of manipulating and toiling, of approval seeking, will ever increase his love for us, or bring us into right relationship with Jesus.

Freedom has already come. It is found at the foot of the cross, where Christ took our lack upon himself and declared, “I am enough. I have bought you with a price and set you free.”

When I wrote my freedom prayer, I had yet to experience the full freedom that confession and healing would bring. But I believed even timid words planted in tears would reap a harvest. My family will attest that I fall short of God’s glory every single day, but my understanding of my freedom has completely changed: The fall may be everywhere around us, but it is not in us. Instead, it is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Isn’t this the point of the good news? When we confess our brokenness and receive the full pardon of Jesus, we are free.

REFLECT:

 

1. What in your life keeps you from feeling like you’re free?