the high cost of freedom

Freedom... a word God's been speaking to me lately...

A word which comes with a cost...

For freedom Christ has set us free...

Galatians 5:1 ESV

Our freedom achieved through His crucifixion...
For freedom... Christ has set us free...
A word we are called to live...

What I realized today... is two-fold...

First... Jesus paid not only our cost for freedom... but His too...
When the Word chose to become flesh... He forfeited much freedom...
He willingly confined Himself to human form... and His Father's will...

"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;

nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."

Matthew 26:39 ESV

The cross... the cup of His Father's wrath...
poured out on the Lamb... bought freedom for His creation...
Yet also... obedient death was Jesus's way out...
His own freedom... from flesh... was also achieved...

For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.

2 Corinthians 13:4 ESV

His freedom... through resurrection... cost Him the cross...

A needed journey... 

or else His Father would have given Him another way...

The cost for His freedom... painful...

Now... second... we are called to freedom...

but we too live in a world at war... the same world Jesus walked in...

Why would we think... that freedom could be fulfilled in our own lives...

without some pain...?

Freedom is something all Believers are called to exercise...

but often we don't... because it involves a painful journey...

Letting go of the addiction...

Surrendering to His will...

Denying desire...

Submitting to persecution...

Yes... we are called to exercise freedom... in the same way Jesus did...

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me...." ---Jesus

Luke 9:23 ESV

So I wonder... what pain... what loss... will I be faced with... as He continues to speak... freedom... to me...?

Am I willing...? to pay the price...? the high cost...? to experience freedom...?

I hope so...

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection

and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:10-11

[emphasis my desire... the other not so much...

if possible... let this cup pass from me...]