Today’s 333 Devotional: “Getting Untangled”

When we come to belief in Jesus Christ, we’ve been set free from the law and its power to enslave. This was the Apostle Paul’s message to the church.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

We no longer have to worry if we’re good enough, done enough good works, or have kept God’s law to be accepted and acceptable to God, because Jesus Christ kept and fulfilled the requirements and penalties of the law, setting us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), and as such we’ve become the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus secured the ideal righteousness and stands before God on our behalf. In fact, that’s the Messiah’s name for us.

“I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Jeremiah 23:5-6)

Paul’s admonition is that since we’ve been set free through the righteousness of Christ, let’s not become entangled again to past bondages.

The bondages Paul refers to are those of becoming ritualized, or going back to the law of works, that is, doing something religious to make us acceptable to God.

But it can also mean our past sins that have kept us in bondage prior to our coming into the saving knowledge of Christ through the forgiveness and repentance of sins.

It’s easy to slip into our past bondages because they are just the right size, and that’s because we’ve kept them in the closet of our minds to try them on now and again. But Jesus Christ has set us free. So, let’s take these old thoughts and throw them away by renewing our minds through the freedom Christ brings.