“All Freedom is measured by its boundaries.
So carry a tape measure.”
How do you measure your boundaries – in inches or in cinches? Living free in your own power is not a cinch! It’s no easy task. When I began my journey back toward a relationship with Christ, I needed guidelines to help me stay within God’s parameters. I have found ten principles that will keep us within the boundaries of our freedom in Christ.
If we are ever going to have any success whatsoever in our efforts to experience freedom in life, we must determine that if God tells us that something is wrong, it is wrong. If God is against it, so am I. I grew up in a Christian home and had lots of boundaries and rules put on me. As a young person, I misunderstood their purpose. I used to plan for the day when I became an adult and could release myself of all those rules. I could not wait for the day that I could live in what I thought would be true freedom! But make no mistake about it, friend, true freedom is found in boundaries. For you only exchange boundaries for bondage.
After stubbornly refusing to allow anyone to tell me what was right and what was wrong, and after my life was destroyed from the “freedom” I chose, I finally realized the lie to which I had become enslaved. As I sought to gain stability once again in life, I struggled because part of me was still living like the world but on the weekends I would sober up and go to church. God taught me a valuable lesson after several months of struggling, ten principles to conquer stubborn habits and that is what I needed to have oneness with God in all parts of my life.
I had to come to a point where I set the standard that if God pointed out to me that something is wrong, I must adapt the same standard. I made the decision that if God would tell me through either my umbrella of authority or through His Word that something was wrong, I was going to get on the right side of the fence. The first line that I drew for myself was when I started coming back to church. I knew that using drugs was wrong. So, I drew a line in my life and set the standard that I was not going to use drugs anymore. But I could not stop there, I soon discovered. Because it would only take a bad day or a wrong choice and I was merely one step away from my addiction. I continually found myself falling over that line. However, as God began showing me more things through His Word and through my leadership, I began drawing more lines in my life. Each one pushed me further and further from the life I once knew. I continued to take steps in the right direction.
As I began to follow this first principle in its entirety, God gave me several others to help me maintain complete sobriety! They are what is now commonly referred to as the RU Ten Principles of Prosperity:
Principle #1- If God’s against it, so am I.
Principle #2-Every sin has its origin in our hearts.
Principle #3-It is easier to keep the heart clean than it is to clean it after it has been defiled.
Principle #4-We cannot fight a fleshly appetite by indulging in it.
Principle #5-Small compromises lead to great disasters. (Little sins lead to big sins.)
Principle #6-Those who do not love the Lord will not help us serve the Lord.
Principle #7-Our sinful habits do hurt those who follow us.
Principle #8-It is not possible to fight a fleshly temptation with fleshly weapons.
Principle #9-We lose our freedom to choose when we give in to temptation. Our consequences are inevitable and incalculable and up to God.
Principle #10- God balances guilt with blame. Accept the blame for your actions and God will remove the guilt.
These principles I still apply, as daily I seek to die, their relevance you cannot deny; if on self you once did try. So soon you will reply, “In Him I must rely”!
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