Devotional: My God Is a Deliverer

The person who best appreciates freedom is someone who was once a prisoner. Saddest of all is to have been held captive for many years without even realizing you were not free. Freedom is precious because, for those of us who know Christ, it is a gift from God.

The other kind of freedom, which gives a person free rein to squander life on passions that lead to eternal death, is a caricature of true freedom. If the Word of God assures us that true freedom exists, surely false freedom exists too. In reality, false freedom is license. And what is the difference between the two? The Hispanic-American Dictionary of Missions says that license turns away from and mocks moral precepts and takes pleasure in violating ethical standards; it is doing whatever one feels like doing, in any circumstance and at any time.

All the painful experiences Christians had before knowing Christ were shaped by a false conception of freedom. Jude, the Lord’s brother, says that some turn the grace of our God into license and deny God, the only Sovereign, and our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 4). License goes hand in hand with sin and is born of the unrestrained will of humanity without God.

Psalm 18 is a song of the deliverance God offers when we recognize that from Him and through Him we attain freedom and release from spiritual prisons. It is good—though not too much—to remember where we have come from: the prison of misery that held us captive in trespasses and sins. Above all, this helps us be more sensitive to the needs of those who still walk in captivity, strutting with pride in their ignorance of true freedom.

In Psalm 18, David praises God for delivering him from his enemies, recognizing God’s hand in all his tribulations and persecutions and giving thanks for his deliverance, a symbol of the victory of the one who seeks the face of his Lord in prayer. We praise Him for giving us the key—shaped by blows of hammers and nails—that opened the prison of sin and brought us salvation and freedom. His blood lubricated the rusted locks of our hard, licentious hearts and tore down every bar of perdition.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free (John 8:36). That is what it is about: the Son, the one sent to bring good news to the poor, to heal wounded hearts, to proclaim deliverance to captives and freedom to prisoners (Isa. 61:1). In each day’s spiritual battle, I invite you to immerse your spirit in this Psalm, and you will feel the promised victory—not yours, but Christ’s. He is the victor and lets us share in His victory.

Many have let themselves be deceived by the schemes of a new generation of miracle-mongers who busy themselves with murdering the glory of God by captivating minds with false cosmologies. Some proclaim prosperity; others promise blessings. They enslave religious people, corrupt the grace of God, and make salvation conditional on following rules that disregard the freedom we have in Christ. To be captive is to be a slave, subject and imprisoned. Paul warned the Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which follows human traditions, which is in keeping with the principles of this world rather than with Christ” (Col. 2:8)

We enjoy freedom. The Lamb’s sacrifice, unique and unrepeatable, allows us to walk in freedom and approach the throne of His grace with confidence, without fear. “In Him, through faith, we enjoy freedom and confidence to approach God” (Eph. 3:12). My God is a deliverer. He marches at the head of the army of those redeemed by His blood and fights all our battles. We are free because we have known the truth (John 8:32), and we are a temple of the Spirit… and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17).

God bless you!