The Freedom of the Believer

1 Peter 2:15-16
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Foolish= G 0878 The religiously unenlightened.

Free= G 1658 applicable meaning: free from the dominion of sin or free in the possession of gospel privileges.

Servant= G 1401 Gives the idea of one pledges or bound to serve. In context with the verse it is a servanthood of choice. Similar to a bond servant.  
        This is NOT the same word used for a domestic servant or a household slave, which would be G 3610.

Romans 6:17-18
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Slaves= G 1401

Obedient= G 5219 To render submissive acceptance.

Teachings= G 1322 Instructions

Committed= G 3860 committed to, delivered to, and yielded to.

Righteousness= G 1343 fair and equitable dealings, piety, or a provision or means for justification.

(The teachings that they were delivered to is the covenant and judging by 1 Peter 2:15-16 those who are outside of the covenant are spiritually destitute)


 Deut. 6:25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.

Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

( Read James 2:14-26)
 James 2:20 (GNV)

20 But wilt thou understand, O thou vain man, that the faith which is without works, is dead?

We are saved BY grace but in order to attain grace we must have faith. In order for your faith to be alive you must have works. Those works are obedience to the covenant. If we have true faith it will foster obedience. As a reward we gain righteousness, our faith lives and thrives, God offers us grace, and through that grace we are saved.

Just to reiterate. We are not saved BY our works. Our faith foster in us a state of obedience, without which our faith would die out. A living faith is required for us to have access to God's free gift of saving grace.

By extension we are never free because in order to have living faith (and through such, have saving grace) we must become bondservants to God and subject ourselves to His law. There is no other path to salvation.

The very word "Faith" is G 4102 - pistis derived from another form of pistis (G 3982) which means simply to believe or to yield. Assent, i.e covenant.
This is what James talks about when he says "Faith without works is dead." To have living faith we must yield to the covenant.

(Read John 14)

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

John 14:15 ¶ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:23-24
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

1John 5:1 ¶ Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

1John 5:2-3
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 John 2:3-4
3And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

All these verses serve to prove that we must keep obedience to the covenant in order to have living faith and through that faith saving grace. In order to do that we must subject ourselves as bondservants to God.

Biblically a bond servant was a hired hand that was released from his master but out if love and devotion to his master he chose to be a slave for life.

Even though God offers to let us free from His instructions (we do have that option) we must, if we love him,  (John 14:5) keep his commandments and willingly volunteer to subject ourselves as slaves to him for the rest if our life.

If we don't subject ourselves to God we do not, then, become free. We simply go back to our old master, sin (satan). There are two laws, the laws of sin and he laws of God. (Covenant) and we are ALWAYS subject to one or the other.

We are not UNDER the law of God because to be under means we are condemned by it.

Romans 3:19 says we are no longer under the law. The word "under" G 1722 literally means, in the sight of or before judicially. So we are before a jury, and people do not get set before a jury unless they have trespassed the law. So we are not under (subject to the penalty of) the law because our trespasses have been forgiven and paid in full. Does this mean we can then continue to trespass and we don't have to obey the law anymore?

Rom. 6:15 ¶ What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Sin is transgression of the law.  (1 John 3:4)

This word "law" G 458 is traced back specifically to the covenant God set forth in Exodus.

These things have not changes since their giving.

Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Messiah was in the beginning with God and IS God. (John 1:1) this being the case Messiah was there when God gave the covenant in Exodus and being that He IS God, he himself gave the covenant. If he is the same he would not have changed His covenant. Our God is not a covenant breaker.

Malachi 3:6
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed."

So we must chose this day whom we will serve. Just as Joshua said in Joshua 24. Notice there was no option to serve no one. You WILL be serving someone. They had to chose who they would serve, false "gods" (satan) or the True God.

Serve= H 5647 Literally means to work, labor, worship etc... (Be obedient to) and means to reduce to servitude or to enslave.

If we truly wish to follow God how can we follow if we do not what He says? We must be willing to do what He has told us to do even if it ruffles some feathers... Even if those feathers happen to be OUR feathers.

Ecclesiastes 12:13
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

IN the world but not OF the world.

I would like to address an issue that was brought up in a recent discussion I was involved in on Google+. What I would like to address is the role of the church in our society today. As the body of Messiah, we are called to be holly and set apart. James tells us to be in the world but not of the world.      Because of this people should look at us and know that there is something different...something positive. Now I am not much of a sports fan, but let me use an analogy with baseball. (pardon me if I get a few details wrong about the game)      In major league baseball they have a skilled roster with proven players. They keep track of what these players have done in their career and their progressions. If a kid off the streets wants to play on a major league team he has a long and rigorous task ahead of him.      First he has to have skill, then he must practice and compete in low level games, move up the ranks, and finally be chosen out of a competitive group of peers. If he is chosen he then joins the elite. Now our church, though infinitely more important than any sports team, should work on a similar plan. If we let the kid off the street in (a non-believer) he will not only be ill equipped to carry on the work of the kingdom but will give all believers a bad name because everyone will look at the church and see the world. Remember we are to be in the world but not of the world...how can we accomplish this if the world is in us? So first, as in our baseball analogy, we must have skill, (a calling of the Holly Spirit) then we must compete, (Change our life, confess Messiah, and live for Him)  then we must move up the ranks, (learn, mature, and grow close to God) and then we are ready to join God's elite. (Take our ministry to the road and win others to Him) It is my personal belief that a church is not a witnessing tool. It is a group of believers who come together to minister to each other, strengthen and teach one another, and edify each other in Messiah.      Then we leave equipped to be effective witnesses for Messiah in our lives, to win others to Him and bring them into the church so they too can grow, move through the ranks and join in to the body of Christ.      Now I am not saying you are not a part of the body until you are in the "elite" but simply until you are to a certain level of maturity (faith wise not age wise) you can not be an effective witness. Paul told the Corinthians ( 1 Corinthians 5) to kick the man out of the church who was found in sin. 1 Timothy 1 also eludes to this.  In Corinthians after the man repented they were told to accept him in again.      Because of these principles I believe that no one who is not a follower of the Messiah should be allowed to be a member of a church.      In times past it used to be you had to have a letter declaring your faith, an interview by the pastor, and a spiritual evaluation to even be allowed to come to some churches. Today you simply walk in the door and they "accept you the way you are."      We should accept people for themselves but that does not mean we agree with the way they live. We certainly should not accept them into the body of Christ if they are living contrary to Christ! Messiah said himself, "A house divided against itself can not stand."  Yet we wonder why so many churches today are falling apart... The number one thing I have heard from individuals I know who have been turned off from the faith is "There is simply to much hypocrisy in the church," The sad thing is it's true! Unbelievers who see it want nothing to do with it because to them we simply act like we are better than them and live just like them.      Unfortunately what they don't realize is that the hypocrisy they see is not from believers as much as it is from non-believers who have been accepted into the body, thus damaging the witness of all. So may our churches be made of believers, our believers be involved in outreach, and our LORD use those outreaches to bring in more believers in a self perpetuating cycle that can not be broken!      Why should the world look at us and see a reflection of itself?