{"id":49,"date":"2009-11-18T07:27:31","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T15:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=49"},"modified":"2009-11-18T08:12:31","modified_gmt":"2009-11-18T16:12:31","slug":"nov-18-winning-into-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Nov 18  Winning Into Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed \u2014John 8:36<br \/>\nIf there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, &#8220;I can\u2019t surrender,&#8221; or &#8220;I can\u2019t be free.&#8221; But<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>t<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>he spiritual part of our being never says &#8220;I can\u2019t&#8221;; it simply soaks up everything around it<\/strong><\/em>. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. <strong><em>God delivers us from sin\u2014 we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality<\/em><\/strong>. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-50\" title=\"OswaldChambers\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/OswaldChambers.jpg\" alt=\"OswaldChambers\" width=\"113\" height=\"182\" \/><\/p>\n<p>God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, &#8220;I can\u2019t do that.&#8221; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our &#8220;arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ&#8221;<\/span> (2 Corinthians 10:5 )\u2014 we have to do it. Don\u2019t say, &#8220;Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.&#8221; Don\u2019t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the Son makes you free . . . .&#8221; Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20  when he said, &#8220;I have been crucified with Christ . . . .&#8221; His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. &#8220;. . . you shall be free indeed&#8221;\u2014 free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed \u2014John 8:36 If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, &#8220;I can\u2019t surrender,&#8221; or &#8220;I can\u2019t be free.&#8221; But the spiritual part of our being never says &#8220;I can\u2019t&#8221;; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}