In Christ and Christ alone.

photo by Joel Joseph courtesy  creationswap.com

Today marks a new beginning for this blog. In the past I have used this blog to express my political thoughts and opinions. Starting today this will also be a place where I will put forth my thoughts on not only politics, but also, faith, from a Christian perspective. 

The name I gave myself when authoring this blog was "Freedomlover". It means one who loves freedom. I have always known -though not always practiced it- that true freedom is to be found in a relationship with Christ and Christ alone. I can almost hear someone saying 'c'mon now in Christ and Christ alone? Yeah that's what I said

Jesus said of Himself "I am the way the truth and the life"  He didn't say He was one of many ways,or that he was one of many truths,or even one of many lifes. He said He was-and is- The way,The truth, and The life.

Well what does that mean? It means that He is the only way to the Father. In other words the only path to a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. It means that he is the One source of truth. If we are to know truth at all it is only through Him. It means that He is the source of all life.

Well ,you protest, that would make Him God! Bingo! That's right Jesus is God the Son, and the only way to know God the Father, and to know what is actually true, and to have real life is through Him.

Then what in the world does that have to do with freedom? Everything. God is freedom. God is the creator of freedom. From the very beginning God -after He had created people- gave those people  freedom.  Unfortunately they used that freedom to disobey God and that caused them to become-in short- slaves to sin. 

That's also bad news for us because through them we also became enslaved to sin. That means we are rebels against God the same as they were and slaves to sin also. Their relationship with God was broken and so is ours and without a relationship with God we can't know freedom. We can't experience what real freedom is!

However that's where true freedom in Christ and Christ alone comes in. The prophet Isaiah predicting the coming of Christ said this... 

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,to proclaim liberty to the captives,and the opening of the prison to those who are bound"

 That was,and is, Jesus mission in a nutshell. To set mankind free from captivity to sin, to bring us out of bondage to our own evil desires,to set us free from the prison of despair and hopelessness caused by our estrangement from God,to heal the brokenness of our hearts caused by sin.

How does He do this? He sets us free when we admit that we have been in rebellion against Him-remember He is God-that we have sinned against Him and ask Him to forgive us. If we will do that we will be-as the Bible says-free indeed! 

You may have noticed the picture at the top of this page. The name of the picture is Forgiven!. It speaks of how we are set free when we are forgiven by God through faith in Christ and Christ alone. This is all made possible because Jesus bore our punishment for sin on the cross hence the crown of thorns, the nail, and the mallet. The Bible -The Word of God- represents Jesus because He was the word made flesh.

As time goes by I will be writing more about this, and how faith and freedom in Christ should and does impact our world, our politics and our nation. For now ask yourself the question "Am I really free?" Have you been set free by Jesus? Have you experienced true freedom? The answer to those questions can all be found in God's Holy Word the Bible. Pick up a Bible today and prayerfully ask God to show you -through His word-true freedom.