Gospel freedom

Tim Chester sums up the freedom and joy of Christian living in 'You Can change' :-

Freedom and Love

Let's sum up our motive for change: to enjoy the freedom from sin and delight in God that God gives us through Jesus. I want to highlight four things arising from this definition.

First, growing in holiness is not sad, dutiful drudgery. It's about joy. It's discovering true joy- the joy of knowing and serving God. There is self-denial, sometimes hard and painful, but true self-denial leads to gaining your life (Mark 8:34-37). There will be times when we act out of duty, but we do this believing that duty leads to gaining our life (Mark 8:34-38). How often have you reluctantly dragged yourself out on a cold night to pray with others only to find yourself energized and blessed?

Second, change is about living in freedom. We refuse to go back to the chains and filth of our sin. We live in the wonderful freedom that God's given us. We're free to be the people that we should be.

Third, change is about discovering the delight of knowing and serving God, our job is to stop wallowing around in the dirt and instead to enjoy knowing God. We give up our cheap imitations and enjoy the real thing. All too often we think of holiness as giving up pleasures of sin for some worthy but drab life. But holiness is recognizing that the pleasures of sin are empty and temporary, while God is inviting us to magnificent, true, full and rich pleasures that last forever.

Fourth, becoming like Jesus is something that God gives to us. It's not an achievement that we offer to him. It's enjoying the new identity he has given us in Christ. it begins with his work for us. He has set us free from sin and offers us a relationship with himself. P.41

As Evangelicals we are often lapse to fall into legalism or liberatianism the cure is still the gospel as Piper says, "you'll never,never, never, never, never, never, never out grow your need for the gospel"

Shalom

Stephen