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Staying Free

(John 8:31-36) To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

• Week 1 Con Carne:
  • 1 Corinthians 2, Paul teaches us about three types of believers: a spiritual person, the unspiritual person, and the carnal person. (worldly)
  • Con Carne
    • Discernment >off<
    • Judgment >off<
    • Desires >off<
  • And through the lesson provided by those who could not cast out certain types of demons. The solution was, less of the world and more of God will always get the job done.
• Week 2 Under The Influence
  • The only weapon the enemy has is the lie, and we’re under the influence of a lie.
  • The enemy uses footholds and strongholds to maintain the positions he has in our lives.
  • Our slavery is identified by our dependencies
  • President Reagan in a famous speech once said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down these walls!”
• Week 3 Shutting The Doors
  • After you address the flesh issues and the stronghold issues. There will be doors that need to be closed. Openings the enemy has access to.
• Week 4 will address the maintenance regiment you will need to incorporate to stay free

Here We Go Again

(Luke 11:24-26) “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.”

We must learn what to do, “When this happens” So there’s a cycle that is always at play that you should understand.

• Freedom everyone wants it. This is a spirit in all of us. It always leads to ease and comfort. Another way of saying prosperity.
• Prosperity leads to pride and complacency.
• Bondage

Stay Free

(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.

Freedom needs to be experienced in 2 ways.

1. In the moment. That’s what we’ve been addressing. This where God touches you and frees you. (Deliverance)
2. It’s also a journey. The process. We call it discipleship. And that’s how you stay free.

Luke 15:11-14) Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.

This is a maintenance process that should never cease

1. Admit that you need help.

(Luke 15:15-17) So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!”

Do you have a place where you are able to come to your senses? People, people, people

2. Humbly repent to God and others.

(Luke 15:18) I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

People will always have a role in God’s remedy for our course correction.

(James 5:16) Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Keep it private between you and God and you’ll be forgiven. But if you want God to heal you from the sin, he calls into the relationships he’s given us to get healing.

The English use of the word repent can begin to be understood by the Greek word that it is translated from.

• This word is metanoeo. Greek lexicons generally define this word as a changing of one’s mind or sorrow.
• The New Englishman’s Greek concordance goes on to say that it is “a change of heart and mind away from self and sin, and towards God and holiness.”

(Genesis 6:5,6) And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

It could literally be translated Burn or Destroy and then Turn Around and leave. To Repent based on scripture is to leave the place you were living in never to return.  It has been crushed, burned down, demolished and destroyed and there is no reason to return. Some can’t stay free because the old house is still standing, just in case you need someplace to stay if things don’t work out.

3. Daily choose to reject Satan’s lies_.

(Luke 15:29-31) But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”

4. Daily choose to receive God’s truth.

(Luke 15:22-24) But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.

• Robe of righteousness. We need to see ourselves as God does.
• Ring of authority. You have his ring. The name above every name gives you access and authority
• Shoes of peace. We have the gospel of peace on our feet