But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Galatians 4:9
Even the least conscientious student of American history is familiar with the American War for Independence. A group of God-fearing men, dedicated to the ideas of liberty and freedom, came together at a point in history that was unlike any other. Through their persistence and sacrifice, they were brought into an uncommon union at just the right time in history. They threw off the bondage of tyranny, and they were able to establish a country built on morals and religious freedom. They risked all and lost much, but what they built has withstood the test of wars, national hardships, and time. How foolish would our Founding Fathers have been to have won their freedom from England, and then deliberately offered themselves back into the bondage they had just cast off? They would literally have had to have been out of their minds to do something so crazy.
As crazy as it sounds for the Founding Fathers to have done something like that, what many Christians do in their spiritual lives is eerily similar. In Galatians 4, Paul asks a poignant question: “After you have seen the power of God work in your life, and after He has delivered you from the very things that threatened to destroy you before you were rescued, how can you, in your right mind, purposely go back to living in bondage to those things?” In Christ, we have been given freedom from the bondage of sin because, as Colossians 2:14 reminds us, when Christ died for us, He nailed those accusations to His cross. We are no longer held captive to the penalty of sin because of what Christ did for us. Why, then, would anyone turn back into bondage to those things from which he had just been set free?
Have you had a time in your life when you were on the “mountain top” with God? Your life was clean, your heart was right with God, and you had an amazing relationship with Him. Remember how spiritually motivated you were at that point, and how wonderful it felt to know that God was pleased? Why would you ever want to turn away from that and go back into bondage to sin? Just like a freed prisoner would never walk out of prison and then turn immediately around and asked to be handcuffed, we, as Christians, should desire the freedom that comes through living for Christ over the bondage of living in sin. The blessings of living for Christ far outweigh the miserable consequences of living in sin.
Read also: Galatians 4:1-9
Quote of the day: “Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.”