Galatians 5:1

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." this has been our theme verse for the week, and it's got me thinking! it's amazing how relevant it has been in thinking about my own walk with God, in the lives of my Bible study girls, and in the spiritual conversations i've had with people in this city.

on some level, that's not entirely surprising; freedom, after all, is the crux of Gospel. here's the scoop: although God created people to have a relationship with Him, we used our freedom to go our own way and rebel against Him. our imperfection separated us from God...until God sent His son Jesus; He paid the penalty for our rebellion through His death on the cross, and by putting our trust in Him, we can once more know God personally. He set us free from the eternal and daily bondage that weighs us down!! as humans, we have the freedom to choose to follow Jesus, and, if we do, we can walk in freedom and forgiveness by power of His Holy Spirit. what good news.

allow me to recap some of the ways this freedom has been manifest in my week!
first, i've been learning a ton about my identity in light of the freedom i possess. scripture tells me i'm a daughter of God and a coheir with Christ, empowered by the filling of the Holy Spirit to do the work of the Lord on earth (Romans 8:13-17). my identity is not dependent upon my performance, my success or my reputation...i have been set free from those things! it's been a total lesson to not just understand these truths intellectually but also to live them out. especially with my role as a staff person in mind, this freedom has kept me from striving and instead enabled me to submit to the Holy Spirit's leading through me...cool!

second, in talking with my girls, i've learned that freedom is one of the hardest things for Christians to accept. no wonder Paul felt the need to flush out this idea in his letter to the Roman church! all of us, for some reason, prefer to rely on our own strength--that is, to bear the weighty burden of our own guilt and others' expectations upon our own shoulders. even after becoming a Christian, a person has to daily choose to claim Christ's freedom and surrender his or her load to Him. to walk with God is to trust Him fully...including when He says that we've been set free!

finally, i got to see this principle at work in a few of the conversations i've had while sharing my faith. i'm thinking of two guys in particular that Becky and I chatted with, Gene and Christian. each of them openly shared their stories with us and asked us to share ours with them. Gene, in particular, had been raised in the church but after various affronts on the part of Christians, lost faith. his church had told him that the Bible was a 'Rulebook for Life' that he had failed to live up to--what a great offense to the Gospel. that completely denies the principles of freedom and grace! it was heartbreaking to see how his church's misunderstanding of the Gospel had wounded him so terribly...that's food for our thoughts.

i pray that each of you would choose the freedom that is available to you! read more about in Romans 8 and Galatians 5 :)

a few prayer requests:
-my continued reliance on the Holy Spirit
-making the most of every opportunity...i'm already half-way done here!
-9 of our students still need jobs
-project outreach to high school students tonight

as always, thanks for reading and for praying!
<3katie

p.s. my d-group at battle of the sexes! girls dominated!!