Friday, July 4, 2014

True Freedom
by Susanna Carlson

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Since today is a national holiday, I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.

            While at Mercy Street, I have found myself being reminded both of the sheer beauty of the Gospel and the freedom that Christ’s salvation can bring. During Super Mondays, the neighborhood outreach program, the Jr. Interns teach a memory verse. For the past three weeks they have taught 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has past away; behold, the new has come.”
What a beautiful promise! What freedom! Because of our salvation in Christ, our old selves have been crucified, we are new creations. We are slaves to sin no longer, freed through the salvation of the Son. Paul is echoing Jesus’s teaching in John 8:34-36:“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
            Americans like to consider July Fourth and the USA as the “birthplace of freedom” but I think freedom began much earlier. True freedom was born in an empty tomb on a Sunday over 2,000 years ago where Christ Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death once and for all. Praise be to him! We are free indeed.

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