Are you living the best life ever? Or is there room for improvement? Do you live openly and expansively or do you feel fenced in?

Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! (2 Cor. 6: 11-13, MSG)

God has called us to enter this wide-open spacious life. Did you know that in the Hebrew language the word salvation is yasha that means “to be wide, or roomy – a broad and spacious place?” Yasha communicates the idea of freedom. We are called to live in freedom, to enter this wide-open spacious life. Salvation is “liberation from confinement, constriction, and limitation.”

We are called to live in freedom. But so many of us still choose to live in a small way. When we focus on ourselves, we do fence ourselves in. When we focus on God, we enter this wide-open, spacious life.

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? (Gal. 5: 13-15, MSG)

True freedom is found only in Jesus. Whether we are in bondage to materialism, fame, fortune, addictions, unforgiveness or entertainment Jesus can break us free. We are helpless but God isn’t. We are out of power but God isn’t. We are fenced in but God isn’t. We are called to live in an open and spacious existence with God Almighty. The choice is ours. We can either live the best life ever with Jesus. Or we can live our lives in a small way on our own. I vote to open up our lives! Come, Lord Jesus!

 

Gracious God,
Come and be the center of our lives!
Lead us to live in wide open spaces!
Show us what it means to really be free!
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: Are you living the best life ever?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you open up your life!

Photo courtesy of Jeff Boriss