Summary
Freedom is for all! Not just Americans to celebrate on July 4th. In this special Independence Day (American Holiday) episode Sasha talks all about FREEDOM… in Christ!
Sasha covers the definitions of freedom & independence, shares a few different scripture verses that remind us of the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ alone, and shares some stories that further develop this belief that it is Christ that has made us free, not man.
Listen in to be encouraged and reminded of the freedom that you have in Christ and to pledge your allegiance to Christ over all.
Sasha also prepared a special Freedom in Christ playlist for you to sing His praises as you are encouraged through this worship music. Available on both Apple Music & Spotify.
Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/freedom-in-christ/pl.u-KVXBkP3sZWp4Ma
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0cKcJELmBGg9ri4aFkeSV3?si=c66314610c964973
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*this episode was recorded LIVE in the Intentional Abundance Community over on Facebook. You’re invited to join us in the Productively Peaceful Moms Club over on facebook! It’s a safe space where we can show up vulnerably and encourage each other, where ere share the mission of being the best mommas we can be through the grace and strength of Jesus Christ, where we encourage consistency and are able to hold each other accountable. We share scripture and talk about podcast episodes and pray for each other and set goals and so much more! You’re more than welcome here, you’re wanted here! https://www.facebook.com/groups/IntentionalAbundance
Transcription
0:04
Hello, Sisters, and welcome back to another episode of the Intentional Abundant Life podcast. I’m your host Sasha Starr Robertson. And today, as any other day, I’m super excited to bring this episode to you because today we are talking about freedom. Today it is the fourth of July, Independence Day here in America, and we are going to be talking all about freedom, but freedom in Christ, y’all. It’s not just something that we celebrate as Americans. On this specific day, but something that we get to celebrate as believers and followers of Christ every single day of our lives. So we’re gonna look into a few scripture verses, and passages, talk about some real-life examples, and I have got a special treat for those of you who stick around to the end. All right, let’s do this jingle and we will dive right in.
1:06
Jingle
2:04
So, I am here today doing this in a totally different way than I normally do. I am also live on Facebook in the Intentional Abundance Community as I am recording this episode, so it feels a little weird, definitely different. For those of you who are in the community, Hello, thank you for joining me. For those of you who are listening to this on the podcast, Hey, it’s still just as amazing here. But if the flow is a little bit different, you might understand why, if I see comments come through, or whatever else. But today, we’re talking all about freedom.
2:40
Freedom is for all because of Jesus Christ, not just Americans on July 4. And so I’m gonna talk about freedom and independence, right, so freedom, there are a couple of definitions about “freedom” that really stood out to me. And one definition of freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. And I was like, “ugh” reading that, it feels kind of gross. It’s like the right to or entitlement to or the privilege to act without restraint and that just feels unhinged, that feels out of control to me. That doesn’t speak “freedom” to me. And I think that’s a big difference in a lot of people’s understanding and interpretation of freedom. But another one that I think is really important here and I think this is the one that scripture often comes into alignment with is a state of not being imprisoned or enslaved to be unrestricted and able to move freely.
3:51
And so I think these definitions of freedom are kind of what we’re going to be talking about today, and what Scripture is referencing. And then we also have independence and it’s the fact or state of being independent. Okay. I always love when definitions have these circular definitions. So what is independent? It is free from outside control, not depending on another’s authority or not depending on another for livelihood or subsistence. I’m not so sure if America or Americans necessarily are independent based off of one of those definitions, free from outside control. Maybe… Maybe you could argue that right?
4:42
But I think this story, I was talking to my dad yesterday. And he was just sharing this and it got my mind really thinking about how well it fits into this podcast episode. And it kind of bridges this transition for us. But my father was sharing the story with me about how so many of his co-workers really struggle to follow what the rules are for the workplace. Right? They have an employee guide, handbook, that talks about, you’re not allowed to wear jeans and you’re not allowed to wear excessive jewelry and you’re not allowed to X, Y, and Z right? And he has a lot of co-workers that are just hell-bent on ignoring the employee handbook in doing and wearing essentially whatever they want.
5:35
And so here’s where the issue comes in, is that they think that they’re exercising their freedom, that they don’t have to live under this outside governance, this outside authority that is apart from them, but they get to exercise their freedom and control over doing truly what they want to do in this situation. But this is their employer, right? So, what happens is other people who are following the handbook and maybe step out from time to time, are the ones who are like… that they want to say something to. So, this is also a leadership problem, right? Where the Leadership isn’t cracking down on the people. And honestly, our whole country is in this employment crisis is what it seems like currently, and so it’s definitely a fine line for this leadership.
6:27
But these employees are thinking that they’re exercising their freedom by not following the rules when in reality, they’re expressing their unrestraint, their inability to do what’s truly best for the workplace as a whole, because it’s not good for workplace culture, and it’s not good for workplace relationships, and it’s not good for the dynamic between the supervision and leadership and the staff that works there.
6:56
And I think what I see is I see this evident in the lives of Christians all the time, is that as we grow closer to God and we grow closer to His will and we step into His freedom, He sets us free from this idea that we don’t need to follow any kind of rules. He draws our hearts closer to His will and exercising his 10 commandments and living in that. Why? Because we know that He has given that to us and it’s ultimately good. It’s ultimately for our greater good and the greater good of the whole of society. Right?
7:36
And I just think of these stories, especially in Job where God kind of confronts Job and He’s like, Oh, well, are you taking into consideration like all of creation and the turtles and all these other things when you make decisions? No, you’re not but I, God, am doing that. And so I just think about that and as we step into His will, and really subject ourselves to this other authority is where we truly find freedom and release from so many things. And so starting out today, I want to share Galatians 5:1 and all of these verses I’m sharing from the ESV unless otherwise noted with you guys. So Galatians 5:1, For freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
8:31
I’m going to share some other translations with this one because I just really liked the different wording in them. King James Version says, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ have made us free and be not enslaved again with the yoke of bondage. And then the New Living Translation says, So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and do not get tied up again in slavery to the law. And I love that it is Christ who has made us free. We do not make ourselves free. And honestly, nobody else can make us free. Like ultimate freedom.
9:13
Freedom is a gift of Jesus, and it’s given to us and received by faith. When we struggle to free ourselves. We just become more entangled again with the yoke of slavery. And I’ve experienced this recently and it was another coach of mine that brought this to my attention. Whereas I felt like I was struggling with discipline and self-control and consistency and whatever else and she was talking to me about how those things I’ve almost taken back from God. These are Fruit of the Spirit, right? Self-control is a Fruit of the Spirit, but I, on my own, struggled to set myself free from these things that I felt were controlling me, and I just took the self-control and I just tried to grab that so tightly that I was preventing God and Christ from working in my life to allow me to live in that Fruit that is from Him of self-control.
10:19
And I truly believe that Christ has set us free from the power and the penalty of sin, right, the power and the penalty. Sin does not have power over us. We can declare that firmly and lay it at His feet and know that He is ultimately in control. He has given us His Spirit to free us from that power of sin. We know we are free from the penalty of sin because Christ died on the cross for that very reason. And I believe that He also set us free from the presence of sin because we have that power. Right?
10:50
And as we continually grow closer to Him and allow Him to transform our hearts towards God’s the presence of sin doesn’t have to be in our lives. I used to have a really, really strong stronghold and addiction in my life for most of my life. And yesterday that was handed to me and said Here eat this. Almost like the apple in the garden, right, with Adam and Eve here eat this and I was like, No, that sin does not even have a presence in my life anymore. That temptation is not there because God has through His Holy Spirit and through his power freed me from that not just the penalty, but the power and the presence of that sin that stronghold in my life.
11:37
And I love how King James Version says, Stand fast. And that stand fast is meaning stand firm, persevere, persist. It’s meaning to maintain allegiance to that freedom and Christ. We pledge allegiance to the flag often here in America, which I don’t even know if they’re doing in schools anymore. But our allegiance is to Christ in the freedom that he has given us not allowing ourselves to become entangled again to the yoke of bondage. Someone who is legally made free in Jesus can still live in bondage and it’s not showing any type of lack in Jesus or his power. But we’re all often deceived into placing ourselves back into slavery.
12:36
And this honestly happened in the garden where we were as, Adam and Eve, as humans, ultimately free in this Eden in this perfect utopia and perfect relationship with God, but we were deceived into placing ourselves into the slavery that then became the law that was just this example that obviously we are not able to with our own might live up to. And we willingly placed ourselves back into slavery. And I think oftentimes as believers, we can forget our allegiance to that freedom in Christ. We can forget that we have the power over sin, that we have the power over the presence of sin, and we can choose to put ourselves back into slavery.
13:34
And when I say choose, it comes in the act of maybe not taking our thoughts captive. And choosing to seek gossip with a friend or something of that nature over turning to Christ. We’re choosing to stress or grip the wheel or try and fight with our own might over things instead of going to Christ. We try hard, so hard to pull the plow that is God’s and the yoke of bondage leaves us entangled, restricted, and frustrated. But we have the power to declare our independence from the lies and the schemes and the tricks and the deception and the temptation that the enemy places before us. And that power is in Christ. Okay? That power is in Christ.
14:29
So moving on, Galatians 5:13, For You are called to freedom brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And I love this part because Galatians 5 continues on to speak of the fruit of the flesh verse, the fruit of the Spirit, and we know that all the goodness there is in that portion of Scripture. And if you’ve been with me for any amount of time, you know my deep love, abundant love, for the fruit of the Spirit. And I want to direct you to go and refresh yourself on all of Galatians 5 because obviously there’s so much goodness and freedom in here.
15:19
But I also want to direct you to this other verse referencing the Spirit of the Lord in this freedom connection. And that is 2 Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And I know you guys probably know one of the 17 songs that are out there that sing and declare this, where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. I am free, Amen is one of them. And I just love that because it’s very difficult for me now to read this verse and not sing it, not sing it out with this worship and adoration and reminding me of this allegiance to the freedom that we have in Christ.
16:06
And to summarize both of these verses from the beginning of Galatians and Corinthians to summarize them and going back into Galatians it’s a great reminder of Galatians, 5:16-17, But I say a walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. And continuing back to freedom. I have a few more verses from John to share. And, John I’m going to talk about John 8:31, 32, and 36. And it says, So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So if the Son sets you free, then you will be free. Indeed.
17:08
And so I just want to remind you friends that we have freedom in Christ, our freedom does not come from a government, our freedom does not come from anything really tangible in this world in this existence. Our freedom comes from Christ, the one who died and hung on the cross for us. And if we abide in His Word, and we are truly His disciples, then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free and this is the truth brothers and sisters, that we are no longer entangled by the yoke of bondage, by the power of the presence nor the penalty of sin. And by walking in the Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom.
17:49
So go remind yourselves about that freedom. I encourage you, obviously to go to Scripture and read these verses for yourself. Read the whole passages read all have Galatians 5 because there’s just so much goodness in there. Visit 2 Corinthians 3:17 and just really bask in this freedom.
18:12
But I am one for music. I love music. I love worship music. I love singing it out to the Lord. And as I had mentioned where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. There are so many songs that reference that scripture verse, but also so many more about being set free. And so I have prepared a playlist right now I have the one on Apple Music. I was thinking I should probably go do this on Spotify for people, as well, who are not Apple users. But I’ve prepared a playlist on Apple Music that I’m going to share the link in the show notes. I’ll even share it here in the community as well. Where you can go and listen to today and even this week and just remind yourself of that allegiance to the freedom we have in Christ. You can bask and rejoice in that freedom in Christ. I think there are about a dozen songs on there. It’s less than an hour of music, but just super powerful stuff. It’s got a little bit of everything in there.
19:07
And then I just want to leave you guys with this little testimony before I jump off today. And that is I have been going through this 21 days of Prayer for Your Business Bible study by Monique McLean. A lot of women in business have heard of this and have gone through it at some point or another and even I think sometimes we as busy moms can often get into the space of beating ourselves up because we have expectations of ourselves or we have expectations like this: 21 days of consistently praying over your business. And then when we’re not consistent with it, we can have a tendency to beat ourselves up over it, right, to put ourselves back in this yoke of bondage because we’re not doing it by any kind of certain expectation or standards. And I say all this to share with you that these 21 days of prayer for your business have not been 21 days consecutive in my reality at all. And there have been times I’m like man, I think I’ve been working on this since May. I started in May. I don’t know if I had a whole 21 days to complete it. I definitely wanted it done by June. But here we are in July and I still have four days left.
20:22
But all that to say, I was never late because today I opened up today’s reading and it was all about being still and she talked about a lady who led a small group at her church about freedom and I just love that she talked about freedom today because that was just a sign from God saying to me, Daughter, you are still on time. There is nothing late about what you are doing. There’s nothing late about sitting in the presence of God and seeking Him and getting quiet. There’s no way we can be late on a Bible study unless we are living to standards set or expectations set by ourselves or someone else because anytime that we go and seek the Lord and seek His presence he is going to be there with us because that is the freedom that we have in Him. He is always going to be there when we turn face to seek Him.
21:26
And it talks about being so desperate to find freedom from different issues in our lives and it talks about the flesh always wanting to call the shots, and how it’s natural for us to want to work out and fix something all on our own. And so I want to leave you with this with this little passage in here that really spoke to me this morning, and she says, When we surrender to God and hand something over to him and become still, we truly find rest for our souls, our minds find rest, our emotions find rest, our feelings find rest. We are telling God that we trust Him when we hand things over to Him. And there’s just so much more goodness in here that I could go on and on and on.
22:10
But today is about that, it’s about the freedom, and sometimes, actually a lot of time, we find that freedom by turning to Him and sometimes even in our busy crazy chaotic days in mom life we can turn to Him and find rest in Him and be a Mary instead of a Martha because that is where our souls and our minds and everything is going to find rest. And I can’t leave this episode without reminding you guys that I am here to walk with you in this journey, to walk with you towards freedom, to re-establish or even establish for the first time these faithful foundations that is in Christ to implement some of these practices to live in this freedom and integrity with what Scripture says and to live this God-first God-focused life. And then from there establish these purposeful priorities so you are pouring first and foremost into what matters most to you.
23:06
Sisters, this is how we can overcome and eliminate a lot of this overwhelm and chaos and burnout and stress in our lives, is to recalibrate and re-align ourselves, not just with truth and God’s word, but what ultimately matters to us in order and focus on them in our purposeful priorities. We work a lot of mindset mastery. So, not just reading God’s word and listening to it like we did today but making sure we believe it in our hearts and that we are taking thoughts captive, that we are not subjecting ourselves again to the yoke of slavery, because we’re being deceived and placing ourselves back into that place. Helping us to declare this independence truly from the lies and schemes and tricks and deceptions and temptations that the enemy places before us because we are all going to be come after, essentially, the enemy is a lion out to devour.
24:07
And I believe that when we work together in relationship, when we have an ally that we are able to better catch these thoughts and catch these beliefs and take them captive. And lay them at the feet of the Lord and that mindset mastery is something that we work heavily on in the IAM Coaching Program. And of course we’re going to implement some simple Biblical self care because what is self care if it’s not Biblical, and honestly, we’re moms, we need self care right? Okay, well, I am just going to leave you ladies at that. You know where to book a consult, link is always in the show notes. And I am just declaring this freedom over you ladies, go click the link in the show notes for this freedom and Christ playlist that I’ve established. Open your Bibles today. It is Independence Day remind yourself of the Independence and the freedom that you have in Christ above all God bless you sisters. And have a wonderful day.
More about your Podcast Host
Sasha Star Robertson is an Intentional Living & Biblical Mindset Coach for busy Christian moms, wife of 13 years to her best friend, boy mom (blessed by adoption), travel addict, and Jesus freak. She is the founder of The Intentional Abundance Co., curator of the Life & Goals Planner, & host of the Intentional Abundant Life Podcast.
Would you benefit from having a coach helping you live Productively Peaceful days digging into Faithful Foundations, Purposeful Priorities, Mindset Mastery, & Simple Selfcare? This question is rhetorical, everyone would! Schedule a consult with Sasha to learn more about the IAM Coaching Program and to see if you’d be a good it. https://calendly.com/intentionalabundanceco/iamconsult
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You’re invited to join us in the Productively Peaceful Moms Club over on facebook! It’s a safe space where we can show up vulnerably and encourage each other, where ere share the mission of being the best mommas we can be through the grace and strength of Jesus Christ, where we encourage consistency and are able to hold each other accountable. We share scripture and talk about podcast episodes and pray for each other and set goals and so much more! You’re more than welcome here, you’re wanted here! https://www.facebook.com/groups/IntentionalAbundance
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