The Spirit of Jesus sets people – people just like you and me – free. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The Spirit of the Lord is in you and in me. Holy Spirit people are free people. Free from everything that has tried to encumber you, to hold you, to bear down on you, to crush you, to overwhelm you. No more!
Your freedom is power. Your freedom sends fear running. Your freedom has no walls. Yes, Holy Spirit people are free. And free people – they free people!
The most powerful human on the planet is a person set free by the Spirit of the living God. Why? Because free people can do what others cannot.
It was a free man who approached Pharaoh in Egypt and said, “Let my people go” (Exodus 9:1).
It was a free man who stepped into the Promised Land and declared, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
It was a free man in his eighties who lifted his voice and said, “Give me my mountain” (see Joshua 14:12).
It was a free man who stepped out of the winepress that he was using as a threshing floor to free his people from the Midianite marauders when heaven freed him by reminding him of his true identity, that of a mighty warrior (see Judges 7, 8).
It was a free man who stared down a giant called Goliath and said, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45).
It was a free group of young people who refused to bow and subsequently exhibited freedom even in the midst of a fiery furnace (see Daniel 3:16-22).
It was a free man who prayed down fire from heaven and then shouted, “Get ready. Here comes the rain” (see 1 Kings 18:44).
It was a free man who opened his mouth and said, “I can’t stay quiet, I must prophesy. It is just like fire shut up in my bones” (see Jeremiah 20:9).
It was a free woman who said, “Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16).
It was a free woman who said, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed” (Matthew 9:21).
It was a free woman who said, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (Matthew 15:27).
In more recent history, it was a group of free men who declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It was a free man who confronted the evils of slavery, proclaimed emancipation for all people, and then declared, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”
It was a free man who had a dream that one day we would live in a nation where we are not judged by the color of our skin but rather the content of our character.
But the greatest expression of freedom in all of time and beyond came some two thousand years ago when, hanging on a tree by His sacrifice, Jesus Christ, a free man and freedom incarnate, embodied the ultimate emancipation proclamation. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36 ESV).
For eternal freedom, freedom of the soul, freedom of the spirit, and freedom to go beyond existence to living does not come from the institutions or writings of human beings. Our freedom comes from He who wrote the law with one finger and grace with both hands. Our freedom comes from the Great Liberator and Lover of our souls.
Our freedom is contagious and frees others!
Samuel Rodriguez joins James and Betty this Monday and Tuesday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from Fresh Oil, Holy Fire, New Wine by Samuel Rodriguez. Copyright ©2024 by Samuel Rodriguez. Published by Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Used by permission.
