Christ came and died to obtain and to restore the spiritual liberty once lost in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve’s transgression. This is the prize of his unblemished precious blood which he shed for our redemption for the gift of freedom for the wills (2 Timothy 2:26) once held in captivity by Satan after the fall and expulsion of Adam from the Garden of Eden as it is written, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. Luke 1:71 – 75.
First, to understand who your enemies are, you should first know who the enemies of God are such as you were in times past God’s enemy in your mind by wicked works as the result of the fruits of sin in your members –your flesh. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight. Colossians 1:21 – 22: (b) the ungodly and sinners in the world – the children of Satan (little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother. 1 John 3:7 – 10) just as you were once before you come to Christ but are now called, saved and instructed not to be unequally yoked with old friends of the world anymore but to come out of them; to touch no unclean thing, and to separate from them that you might be received by God. 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 18.
Now in Christ Jesus, you are delivered from this present evil world (Galatians 1:4) and are no more of the world. The world will hate you as it once hated Christ if you are truly and devotedly represent the light, walking in it and speaking the truth, as the truth is in Christ Jesus, of whom you are now representing in the world and called to defend his cause and to portray his image in the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness before the children of this world love which love darkness more than light because their works are evil. Christ do not set you free that you might love the ways, doings and practices of them that hate the truth and light; as it is against spiritual principles of the God of truth to give any false notion of approval and understanding in order to appease the anger and persecution of the evil ways, doings and practices of sinners lest you incur the curse (woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20) of God on you: friendship with the world is enmity against God. Whosoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. You are bought with a price and are set free from that you should not be servants of men (as men’s pleasers). 1 Corinthians 7:23. James 4:4.
Believer is purchased back by the blood of Jesus from the hand of his old master, the devil: now, he’s not to live for himself anymore but to live for his Redeemer (Christ) in the world, for by living for himself, he’s indirectly living for his old master once again (Romans 6:6) who through the lusts of the flesh, allure and tempt to ensnare into captivity. The believer is not free to choose his friend in the world or among the worldly than to seek the company of those that love God and those that keep his precepts (I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. Psalms 119:63) who are calling upon the name of the God out of a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2:22. Note: our prestige for Christ and our evaluation of his worth in our relationship with him is determined, not by our talks and dressing, but by our diligent walk to walk worthy of his calling before the world, revealing the amounts of respect and honor we bring unto his name by our abiding life – walking in him. The Lord has never once pretended; but he confessed to the honor of his saints, the value and worth of his brethren whom he lay down his life to save by his precious unblemished blood, not ashamed to called them brethren before the crowd — my brethren and mother are they that heard the word of God and live by them. Matthew 12:46 – 48.
Believer is not free to listen to secular music or to watch secular films and videos, or to choose his friends in the world, than to keep himself unspotted from it (James 1:27): those who are still link with the worldly and ungodly in the world outside the context of the scriptures in any association of comradeship (can two walk together unless they agreed? Amos 3:3) with the unregenerate men of this world are guilty of the sin and condemnation of an unequally yoked together with unbelievers and are yet to discover the true freedom, liberty and light that lighten everyman that come into the world that they should not walk in darkness but to have the light of life. You cannot love the world, to love or walk in the way of the ungodly, to sit with the scorners to abide in the love of God! It is not possible. Such is the double eye spoken by the Lord: and if the eye is double, the whole body is full of darkness, and if the light in such is darkness, how great is that darkness because of their association with the children of darkness. The Lord says, I am come as light in the world, that whosoever believes in him should not walk in darkness, but have the light of this world. This is our freedom and deliverance from wrong association. In this light of life is found the true liberty to live and walk and not to stumble into pi or be ensnare by the fowler – the soul hunter: none is saved and free to keep his old – unsaved and unregenerate friends in the world in a common (habitual and familiar) relationship for the liberty procure by Christ is a call to walk in the gospel lifestyle (only let your conversation becomes as the gospel of Christ. Philippians 1:27), showing the differences between the clean and unclean, between the holy and unholy: I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 1 Corinthians 5:9 – 10.
Second, the purpose of our liberty in Christ is clearly written that we might serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. This is the power of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. This is the freedom from you, that is, the old man in whom nothing good could be found, that the body of sin might be destroyed – he that is dead is free from sin. Romans 6:7. This is what Christ did for you and me when we are crucified with him and are no longer lives, but he lives in us to make us servants of righteousness, and not of sin, if we keep yielding ourselves, not to the flesh, lest we die (for, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Galatians 5:13) but to the indwelling Holy Spirit of God for continuation in our present life and walk in the spirit (Galatians 5:25) that we might keep sowing to the spirit in the preparation for the harvest of eternal life. Note: just as the flesh made man to die spiritually and was cut off from God through the lusts thereof in the Garden of Eden; his flesh was crucified and buried with Christ to deliver him from the corruption of it by God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh to graft him back to himself, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in them, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Therefore, Christ liberty is our independent, liberty and deliverance from the flesh that was once weak and in bondage to Satan but is now overpowered through the inner man – the new man, if he will continue to walk in the newness of life. 2 Corinthians 5:17. Galatians 6:15.
The liberty of the world is an occasion or justification to the flesh, gratifying any immediate present lusts and sinful desires of the mind without any remorse or expectation of reprimand from any. Those who shall dare say otherwise are said to be judgmental and critical of others, intolerance and prejudice. Christian liberty should not be a cover up by any means to do (but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. Romans 2:8 – 9) evil. Who is it that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good? Our liberty in Christ is the ability or power to exercises in increasing godliness and to pursue anything that is true, honest, just, pure, and lovely and of good report, virtue and anything praiseworthy. Philippians 4: 8 – 9.
Your spiritual freedom and liberty in Christ should not be evil spoken of lest it becomes an occasion of fall to the brother of little faith or you become an occasion to fall unto others if your liberty is exercised in any the appearance of evil – abstain from all appearance of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:22. Therefore, lest the true sense of Christ liberty is misconceive in the church, Apostle Peter (1 Peter 2:16) warns that as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke or pretense of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust you not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations? Jeremiah 7:3 – 10. Note: It is to walk contrary to the purposes of the cross when a believer chooses not to walk in the liberty of Christ or not to prepared to make himself stand firmly in the liberty if he keeps walking in craftiness, not renouncing dishonest things which are damnable to his soul — the fruit and reward of a hypocrite before God. The servants of God are servants of righteousness (being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. Romans 6:18 – 22), a good tree wholly planted by the Lord to produce all the fruit of the Spirit which is all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto God. Ephesians 5:9 – 10.
Now, the Lord is that spirit, and where there is spirit of God, there is liberty. 2 Corinthians 3:17. This liberty includes the ability of a believer to visit other churches and to go from one church to another to compare spiritual things with spiritual; here a little, and there a little. There is no congregation completed with all the five-​fold gifts of ministry for his edification and spiritual growth as it should be unto the fullness and measure of the stature of Christ; so the scriptures says not to forsake the assembly of one another as the habit of some is even though we still need to be careful of the field we seeks to glean from, lest they should feed us with poisonous meat to hinder us from running the race well. These are very different from some outlaw brethren of spiritual rebels and criminals who are jumping from one church to another because they refused to be corrected in submission to correction for any wrong doing, thinking that nobody has the right to check, correct, rebuke and reproof them of their ungodly conducts, but their end is destruction (a man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sins, being condemned of himself. Titus 3:10 – 11): them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. 1Timothy 5:20.
If there is any place on earth where men are expected to behave sensibly, orderly, holily, justly, rightly, solemnly, soberly and godly, it is none other than the house of God, which is the ground and pillar of truth. The beauty of our liberty in Christ is found in the nine fruit of the Spirit such as love, joy, peace, meekness, faith, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and self control or temperance (against such there is no law): none is allowed to behave unruly in the church to another or against the authority of the local church (1Thessalonians 5:14) and none is free to speak foolishly or to utter jesting which is not convenient for because of those things the wrath of God is coming upon the children of disobedient, and every idle word that men shall speak shall be accounted for on the day of judgment. Ephesians 5:4.
Believer’s freedom and liberty in Christ is not in any way the license to rebel against any of the authority of the land which falls within the bond of the scriptures – let every soul be subject to higher authority, for there is no authority that be except God. Take for example, the present situation of Covid virus 19 lockdown as some churches openly defies the authority, hereby spread the infection among their church members and cause preventable death of certain members by mass gathering. The church is not the concrete and cemented buildings we sit under to worship God, but the individual believer’s are – let us practice social distance until everything is brought under control. By the way, there is no government is persecuting the church not to preach on the internet because of the virus lockdown, while then are certain in the church exaggerating on the liberty of association when they are actually rebelling against the word of God to submit to the state authority until the virus situation is brought under total control? And though we are born again, filled with the Spirit of God, yet, we are to be in obedient and submission to our superior boss at work as servants of God, not only to the good manager, but also the bad and forward in the fear of God, our liberty in Christ is not in any way to become proud, self– opinionated in spirituality without morality before the people who employed us to work for them.