The nation Nigeria celebrated her 63rd year of independence from the British colonialists in October 2023, but she has experienced an economic downturn due to rule under the hands of wicked rulers. These rulers have continued to keep their citizens from food, good water, and amenities they are entitled to as citizens, and so the nation is poor even though she has received her liberty on paper.
For the believer, in salvation, God saved us not from colonialists, but from Satan’s bondage through sin, but the believer can experience bondage even though liberty has been secured for them in Christ just like Nigeria is experiencing at the moment. Why? The believer just like every other man is free to make his choices, and so he can make choices that opposes the liberty he has through Christ.
And so, What is liberty?
Liberty means being free, from the world, from satan, and bondage (2 Cor 3:17).
What is bondage?
Bondage is any experience a person has or is having that is not God’s original plan.
Bondage is enforced by concepts known as legal grounds. Legal grounds are actions or decisions that give certain consequences or effects freedom to be made manifest in our lives.
All of humanity is under the bondage of death as a result of the action of sin committed by Adam. Adam disobeyed God by eating a forbidden fruit. All of mankind has been put under bondage because of Adam’s error.
This punishment of death was laid on us through the legal ground Adam allowed by disobeying God in the garden. of Eden, but Jesus gave all of mankind liberty by his blood. He shed his blood on the cross to conquer every bondage of sin (Romans 3:21-26), creating the legal ground for our liberty. The experience of this liberty is now available to all who are born again in Christ.
We have liberty through the rebirth we had in Christ. The Holy Spirit worked out our rebirth, he is the Spirit of liberty (Romans 6:4).
There is something we must acknowledge if we want to walk in this liberty every time; the liberty we have in Christ is bound by a law that can be defined as the law of choice, earlier mentioned (Romans 6:16). The law of choice states that whatever a man yields himself to, he becomes a servant to. This law comes into play on the basis that we are free from sin’s bondage, and can now choose between righteousness, and sin. For a believer who chooses otherwise, he will live as opposed to the liberty we have in Christ. His outcomes will not tally with what is his in Christ. This is why Christians today are bound under one addiction or the other
We are supposed to submit the liberty we have received through Christ by obedience to his commandments (1 Cor 6:12).
Our experience of this liberty on earth relies on our choice to yield to Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is another form of servitude, but unlike what we experienced when we were in sin. In this form of service lies our experience of liberty (1 Cor 6:17).
There is a huge difference between being born again and giving our lives to Christ. Being obedient to Christ is to give our lives to him (Romans 12:1). Any believer who desires to walk in liberty, must be willing to yield their lives to Jesus by obedience to his Spirit.
