It for freedom that Christ has set us free.   Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery - Galatians 5:1

What a profound statement: "set free for freedom."   

Why say this?   Because we have this tendency to go backward instead of forwards, we have this tendency to return to the things that made us slaves.    You see it in Exodus with the people of Israel, "why didn't you leave us in Egypt?"     Christ has set us free to experience freedom, we have this freedom through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are meant to live this new life, by the power of this freedom, set free from sin, from its "POWER", its "PULL".

Chuck Swindoll tells a story about a merchant selling quails in the market place.   A man approaches and tells the merchant he would like to purchase them all, however not for food, but rather to set them free.   The merchant cuts the string tied to one leg of the quail and it takes about a minute or two from them to realize they are free, once they do they fly off about 30 yards and begin to walk in circles as if they were still tied to the ground.

This story reminds me of two important things:

1. Grace is not cheap

 Christ Purchased our Freedom

2. We have been set free to stay free

We should learn to not return to the old patterns, the ways of slavery, the things that stall us, that bind us up.

For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.  ~Deuteronomy 20:4

I think all too often we forget to invite God into our battle, our struggles, or circumstances.   Or we wait until we are overcome before we cry out to the Lord.   

Reality is that when God becomes the center of our life, this word tells us that He will fight my battles, your battles with you, that in fact He does not leave it to chance, did you hear that He is not planning to lose, He is going into the battle with you to "Give You Victory...

I need, we need to allow God into our life in every area, we need to trust Him and trust that He always has our best interest at heart, that with Him there is nothing we face that we can't see victory.

• He Goes Before Me
• He Goes With Me
• He Gives Me Victory

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  ~Galatians 2:20 

What Paul is saying is that our life can be its best, be the most fruitful when it looks like Christ when we take on His nature.   

But how can we do that, how do we look more like Christ, I think its wrapped up in Paul's first statement:   "we must die to the old man or the old self,"  the sin nature must begin to have less of a footprint in our lives.

If our lives are to be fruitful, to be blessed, to be what God intended we must learn to die daily to our old nature and become alive in Christ.  Jesus said it John 12:24:

"unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."   

Today learn to surrender your life and you will find the living God always intended for you.