Many years ago, I was feeling the weight and the burden of sin in my life.
I knew that God loved me, I believed God cared for me, and I trusted that God had forgiven me on various levels.
But, I also knew that there was something else that was lacking.
On this particular day, I had ridden the subway down to Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.
I began walking with no destination in mind.
I walked and prayed and walked and prayed.
I finally ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge and began walking across the bridge to the Brooklyn side of the river.
About halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, I stopped and stared out into the river and focused upon the Statue of Liberty.
I thought about the millions of people who had seen the Statue of Liberty from a distance.
I thought about how these millions of people must have been imagining and longing for the freedom that would await them once they reached the shore.
I thought about the oppression and the conditions they had suffered, causing them to willingly risk everything to experience true freedom.
I remember praying to God on the Brooklyn Bridge and asking for that same type of freedom in my life.
I remember confessing to God that I was desperately tired of the cycle of my sin and the oppression that accompanied it. I remember telling God that I wanted to know true freedom.
I began to think about John 8:32. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” I wanted to experience freedom, but the way to experience freedom was to know the truth.
I had to declare the truth.
I had to confess my sin.
I had to confess my doubts.
I had to confess that I had looked to things other than God, to provide for me what only God could provide.
I had to be brutally honest about sin and its power.
I had to stop underestimating the subtlety of sin and the schemes of the Enemy.
Finally, I had to confess a Truth that I knew in my head but was not reflected in my life.
Sin is not as powerful as God.
The Enemy always lies.
Compromise had become too common in my life.
Sin was not just something that I slipped and fell into on various occasions.
It was ruining me and robbing me from what God had intended.
I didn’t graduate from sinning that day on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Sin has definitely knocked me down many times since then.
The Enemy has whispered other lies and I have listened.
But, I am quicker to regularly run to the Truth.
I am quicker to run to the Truth of who I am.
I am quicker to run to the Truth of who God is.
I have come to appreciate that freedom is as much a part of my relationship with God as forgiveness.
Each day I am reminded to pursue the forgiveness and freedom that God offers.
Each day I am reminded that there are people all around in the grip and oppression of sin who are desperate for freedom.
The Enemy will try to convince us that freedom is found in something else.
The Enemy will try to convince us that we are too far gone and that forgiveness is not an option.
The Enemy will try to convince us that sin is no big deal, as it tightens its grip on our lives.
But, we have to know the Truth.
We have to speak the Truth.
We have to experience the Truth.
Sin is not as powerful as God.
The Enemy lies.
But, the Enemy has been defeated.
There is no one beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness and the freedom He offers every person.
Leave the lies of the Enemy.
Learn the intense love of God.
Lean on the liberty God offers us today.
-Sterling
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