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freedom even when not free

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

I sat and listened several times to people talk about hard times this week.  Some shared stories of being homeless or without a job.  Others talked about sickness and uncontrollable things that happen.  Life just doesn't seem fair.  Would you agree?

God is the only one that can make us free.  He does forgive our sin.  A man was in my office today and shared with me that while he was in jail recently he felt that he freedom like few times before.  I get letters from a friend who is in prison, and he shares with me how God is speaking to him and through him while behind bar (my friend's name is Rob, and he led one of his cell mates to Christ last week!!!!).

Go is in the business of setting us free when nothing and no one else can do that.  You see, often we allow our situations that tie us up or put us in some sort of prison.  That is not something that those who follow God should do.

Years ago I learned that we can either be a thermostat or thermometer.  A thermostat sets the temperature while a thermometer tells you want the temperature is.  Being a thermometer means that we let life or health or our situations dictate how we feel and act.  Being a thermostat means we DON'T let the things of life dictate how we live or act or feel.  Nothing can change my relationship with God.  No one and nothing can take God away from me or away from you.

I was blessed to be part of the funeral for a friend today.  He lived a pretty rough life, yet in the last couple months he asked Jesus to be his savior.  He made peace with God.  During the funeral his brother shared this poem that was found on the table near his brother's bed:

Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the Spirit.

My friend lost his battle with cancer (please pray for the family of Will Draper), but he didn't lose in life.  He walked in to heaven a free man.  Free from cancer.  Free from addiction.  Free from the pain of life.  He was freer than he had ever been before.

Don't let life or the people you encounter set how you act and feel.  Let the things that God says set those things.  Let God work in and through your life.  Believe what God says because He will give you freedom even when you are not free.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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