Whiteboard: For Freedom

Since it is Fourth of July Weekend, this coming Sunday we will celebrate Freedom Sunday at FCC Scottsdale. 

And what better scripture passage could we have than Galatians 5!

Galatians 5 begins, "For freedom Christ has set us free."

On the 4th of July we celebrate the dreams, aspirations, and very best of our country and on the Sunday right before the July 4 we celebrate Freedom Sunday by lifting up the very best of who we are as believers who have been set free by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Through the power, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love that we know through Jesus we are set free from all things that would oppress us and pull us away from God's call in our lives. God does not force us into a life of worship and service (such would simply be another form of enslavement) but rather frees us from our bonds and invites us to find meaning and purpose in our lives through God. That is what it means to be truly free...and that is worth celebrating on Sunday morning!

(by the way: With the Whiteboard picture this week, it seems that people either immediately get it or they don't get it at all. That is a bird flying away (set free!) at the end of the word "freedom")

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Galatians 5:1, 13-15 On Freedom

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.