Receive the Truth
God loves us and wants us to be totally free from sin, death, and all the lies that would hurt us. As we seek God’s truth in His Word and apply it to our lives, we will experience greater and greater freedom and we will be able to share this freedom with others.
God Wants Us to Be Free
(31) To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
(32) Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
How does Jesus’ teaching change our lives?
(3) This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
(4) who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
(5) For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
(6) who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.
Who is God’s truth and freedom for?
Free From What?
Read the following verses and answer: what do we need freedom from?
(38) “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
(39) Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.
(14) For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
(15) What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
(16) Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
(17) But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
(18) You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
(19) I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
(20) When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
(21) What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
(22) But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
(23) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(14) But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
(15) For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
(20) Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:
(21) “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
(22) These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.
(23) Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Seek the Truth
Jeremiah 29:12-14 (NIV)
(12) Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
(13) You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
(14) I will be found by you,” declares the Lord , “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord , “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)
(7) “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
(8) For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Seek God with all your heart.
(13) But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
Seek God’s Spirit who guides us into truth.
(12) For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Seek the truth in God’s Word.
Know the Truth
How can we know the truth?
Read the following verses and answer.
(45) I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
(6) Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
(16) But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
(17) Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
(18) And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Ask a Friend
Can you share a story of experiencing freedom?
(How did you find the truth? From what were you set free?)
Application
- What would you like to be free from? How?
- How can we become freer everyday?
- How can we help others to find freedom?
Prayer Model
Lord Jesus, I thank You for setting me free from sin, death and the lies of the devil. I receive Your truth that makes me free. Please continue to teach me from Your Word.
Key Verse
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”