Personal Freedom

Three negatives erode our vitality and limit our joy. Control these three and you can live a better, more productive life. They are:

* Free your heart of hate. Booker T. Washington opined, “I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. Holding on to your anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

* Free your mind of worry. Shakespeare said, “There is a divinity that shapes our ends.” Joy dances in the corridors of our cranium when we come to trust the Lord God who loves us and watches over us. Then we can say with the poet:

“I say it when the storm is heavy.
I say it when night is on the land.
That behind the power is God’s kind hand.
And so I rest as a swan rests on a river
Calm amid life’s troubled flow.
For I know I am held by a power and a love
That will not let me go.”

* Free your life of guilt. Guilt is a load too heavy for you to carry alone. It is essential to have someone carry it for us. Our Lord does so when we confess our responsibility for our part in what caused the guilt and ask Him to cleanse us of it. So,

“…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience….” (Hebrews 10: 22)

Then we understand what the psalmist meant when he wrote, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is not deceit.”