A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin
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John 8:31-36 (English Standard Version)
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”33They answered Him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34Jesus answered them,“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Devotion: “Freedom from slavery”
The Jews to whom Jesus is speaking are weak in their faith and smugly assume that because they are descendants of Abraham they have privileged and secure positions as sons in God’s household. They are shocked when Jesus gives them the news that they are not sons but slaves. Jesus is saying that the Son (that is Jesus) will set them all free. They will be free from spiritual bondage [as slaves] to sin. Real freedom consists of liberty from sin’s enslavement to do what we should do. It does not mean that we may do just anything we please. We are now free to do what pleases God, which we could not do formerly. When we do what pleases God, we discover that it also pleases us. Hope for real freedom, therefore, does not rest on anything we do or whom we are descended from but on Jesus’ action. Try as we might we cannot work our way out of slavery to sin. We have no control -- it is all about God’s freely given grace.
Pray: Lord, thank you for your saving Grace! Amen
Blessings,
Joe