I Am Not Free by G.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 26, 1865

"I Am Not Free."

By G.

Some persons are ever complaining of being bound, and suffering great bondage of spirit. Perhaps the following common-sense thoughts from a writer in the Golden Rule may help indicate where their trouble is. Let a person do his duty prayerfully and persistently, and he will be free. To say that we are in bondage is generally about the same as saying that we have done wrong. G.

I AM NOT FREE! No wonder! You have grieved the Holy Spirit. How? Perhaps by cherishing unkind feelings toward some one. Search and see if this is not the case. Open your heart and welcome the light. Don't dodge now. Don't be afraid of making an unpleasant discovery, but pray as did David, "search me, O God." How is it now, is your heart just right with everybody? Lord help you in this investigation. Be thorough! You will soon be at the bar of God. Perhaps your tongue is not sanctified; let us see. Are you worldly in your conversation on the Sabbath? Do you indulge in trifling conversation at any time? Do you speak of another's faults when he is not present to plead his own cause? If so, no wonder you are not free. "Let your conversation be in Heaven." "Speak evil of no man." Perhaps you have become unduly prejudiced against one or more. Have you not entered your judgment against persons without sufficient evidence that they were wrong, and thus your heart leans away from them? These persons may be blessed of God in your presence, and you feel it not, because your heart is upside-down. In other words, your mind is so biased against them that you cannot enjoy the heavenly freedom with them. While this is the case, salvation may come down in showers, and you will be dry. Get in the right position before God, and your eyes on Jesus, and you will not be bound long. Perhaps you have been disobedient. It is as impossible for you to retain your freedom in the Lord while disobedient, as it is to build a granite wall upon a fog. "Obedience is better than sacrifice." "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him." "Mind the same things and walk by the same rule." You may have been led to disobedience through fear of reproach. You dread being regarded as singular in your religious life. When you first set out in the heavenly way, the Lord blessed you much. You were willing he should have his way with you, but when your wisdom and prudence began to be called in question, you paused so long to consider what was best, that you got your eyes off from Jesus, and began to look after your reputation; and thus your soul became ensnared by the enemy. Do you dress as plain as the Lord requires? Do you reprove sin as the Lord requires? How many fail here. They fear the face of clay. "The fear of man brings a snare." You must be willing to be reproached for Christ's sake. He laid down his life for you. "Let us go with him without the camp bearing his reproach." Dressing plain, reproving sin, renouncing the Devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, for Christ's sake, will bring reproach, but "happy are such, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon them." You may have disobeyed by shrinking from responsibility. God has called you out to labor for him, but you have halted so long "between two opinions," that you have grieved the Spirit away from your heart, and the cause of Christ has bled as a consequence. Dear reader, how can you be free while at ease in sin. Has not God called you to take higher ground in religious experience? To be definite, have you seen it your privilege and duty to be sanctified to God? If so, have you walked in the light of this conviction of want, so that, to say the least, you now are panting, yea groaning, to be delivered from sins remaining, or have you concluded that this blessing is not for you, and so you have ceased to wrestle with God for it? If so, this is enough to bind your soul. God help you; take courage, you may be fully redeemed. Benevolence is part of obedience to God. How is it with you in this respect? Are you doing all God has made known to be your duty? You cannot, under God, be proprietor and steward of your temporal effects. God is proprietor and you steward. The grace that converts a man's soul converts his pocket also; where the soul is saved it is saved from the love of the world. Hence all temporal effects are to be consecrated to the use God would have us make of them. "He that hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him." Alas! no wonder many complain, "I am not free." Instead of having the "well of water in them springing up into everlasting life," they have "hewed out to themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water." Reader, if you are not free, stop up the leaks in your soul, and you will then find that you are "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." Follow Christ, and you shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Honor God and he will honor you with peace, joy, light, life and freedom.