Set Free

John 8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in 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."  (ESV)

The Jews bristled at this because they claimed to be offspring of Abraham and never to have been slaves. This was, of course a bold lie, because their ancestors had been slaves for 400 years in Egypt. And while, perhaps technically not slaves of Rome, they were certainly under the control of a pagan government. But perhaps more importantly, they were slaves to the rituals they had created that caused them to discount, even hate, Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath and had lunch with tax collectors and wouldn't throw a stone at an adulterous woman.

So how does Jesus set me free. I am set free first from sin, which gives me freedom from guilt, from my past, from death. As I thought about that I began to think about other freedoms. Not only do I have freedom from those things in the past, I have freedom from the future.

By that I mean I am set free from worry about my life and what tomorrow may - or may not - hold. If Jesus can clean up my known past, he can also take care of my unknown future. Why? Because he IS my future. I don't know what will happen an hour from now, much less tomorrow or next week or next year but Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. He sees it all.

If I trust him to save me, I must trust him to sustain me. That's the abiding part...I walk closely with Jesus (read the Bible, do what it says) and he promises never to leave me. It's not logical to believe some of what he says and not believe something else. He's not a man that can lie; he is God!