30 Bible Verses about Freedom, Abuse Of Christian
Most Relevant Verses
So then there is no condemnation at all for those who are in union with Christ Jesus.
Who can bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who declared them in right standing; who can condemn them? Christ Jesus who died, or rather, who was raised from the dead, is now at God's right hand, and is actually pleading for us. Who can separate us from Christ's love? Can suffering or misfortune or persecution or hunger or destitution or danger or the sword?read more.
As the Scripture says: "For your sake we are being put to death the livelong day; we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered." And yet in all these things we keep on gloriously conquering through Him who loved us. For I have full assurance that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor the present nor the future nor evil forces above or beneath, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God as shown in Christ Jesus our Lord.
by His death in His human body, so as to present you consecrated, faultless, and blameless in His presence,
and from Jesus Christ the trustworthy witness, the First-born of the dead, and the Sovereign of the kings of the earth. To Him who ever loves us and once for all released us from our sins by His blood,
Jesus answered them, "I most solemnly say to you, everyone who lives in sin is a slave of sin. Now a slave does not live permanently in a household, but a son does. So if the Son sets you free, you will be really free.
Do you not know that when you habitually offer yourselves to anyone for obedience to him, you are slaves to that one whom you are in the habit of obeying, whether it is the slavery to sin whose end is death or to obedience whose end is right-doing? But, thank God, that though you once were slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching in which you have been instructed, and since you have been freed from sin, you have become the slaves of right-doing.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin. Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate. But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.read more.
Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me. For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right. Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do. But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me. So I find this law: When I want to do right, the wrong is always in my way. For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law, but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature. Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.
For the slave who has been called to union with the Lord is the Lord's freedman; in the same way the freeman who has been called is a slave of Christ. You have been bought and actually paid for; stop becoming slaves to men.
promising them freedom, though they are slaves of destruction themselves; for a man is the slave of anything that conquers him.
Accordingly, sin must not continue to reign over your mortal bodies, so as to make you continue to obey their evil desires,
Therefore, as we have so vast a crowd of spectators in the grandstands, let us throw off every impediment and the sin that easily entangles our feet, and run with endurance the race for which we are entered, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the perfect leader and example of faith, who, instead of the joy which lay before Him, endured the cross with no regard for its shame, and since has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he will ask and God will grant him life; yea, He will grant it to any who do not commit a sin that leads to death. There is a sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. Any wrongdoing is sin; and there are sins that do not lead to death. We know that no one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, but the Son who was born of God continues to keep him, and the evil one cannot touch him.
What is our conclusion then? Are we to continue to sin for His unmerited favor to multiply? Not at all! Since we have ended our relation to sin, how can we live in it any longer?
But if our wrongdoing brings to light the uprightness of God, what shall we infer? Is it wrong (I am using everyday human terms) for God to inflict punishment? Not at all! If that were so, how could He judge the world? But, as you say, if the truthfulness of God has redounded to His glory because of my falsehood, why am I still condemned as a sinner?read more.
Why should we not say, as people abusively say of us, and charge us with actually saying, "Let us do evil that good may come from it"? Their condemnation is just.
Everything is permissible for people, but not everything is good for them. Everything is permissible for people, but not everything builds up their personality.
Now if, in our efforts to come into right standing with God through union with Christ, we have proved ourselves to be sinners like the heathen themselves, does that make Christ a party to our sin? Of course not. For if I try to build again what I tore down, I really prove myself to be a wrongdoer. For through the law I myself have become dead to the law, so that I may live for God.read more.
I have been crucified with Christ, and I myself no longer live, but Christ is living in me; the life I now live as a mortal man I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I never can nullify the unmerited favor of God. For if right standing with God could come through law, then Christ died for nothing.
But you must see to it that this right of yours does not become a stumbling block to overscrupulous people. For if somebody sees you, who have an intelligent view of this matter, partaking of a meal in an idol's temple, will he not be emboldened, with his overscrupulous conscience, to eat the food which has been sacrificed to an idol? Yes, the overscrupulous brother, for whom Christ died, is ruined by your so-called knowledge.read more.
Now if in such a way you sin against your brothers and wound their overscrupulous consciences, you are actually sinning against Christ.
It is the duty of us who are strong to bear with the weaknesses of those who are not strong, and not merely to please ourselves. Each one of us must practice pleasing his neighbor, to help in his immediate upbuilding for his eternal good. Christ certainly did not please Himself; instead, as the Scripture says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen upon me."
For you, brothers, were called to freedom; only you must not let your freedom be an excuse for the gratification of your lower nature, but in love be slaves to one another.
Make it your practice to receive into full Christian fellowship people who are overscrupulous, but not to criticize their views. One man believes that he can eat anything; another who is overscrupulous eats nothing but vegetables. The man who eats anything must not look down on the man who does not do so, nor must the man who does not do so condemn the man who does, for God has fully accepted him.read more.
Who are you to criticize another man's servant? It is his own master's business whether he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord has power to make him stand. One man rates one day above another, another rates them all alike. Let every man be fully convinced in his own mind. The man who keeps a certain day keeps it for the Lord. The man who eats anything does it for the Lord too, for he gives God thanks. The man who refuses to eat anything does it for the Lord too, and gives God thanks. For none of us can live alone by himself, and none of us can die alone by himself; indeed, if we live, we always live in relation to the Lord, and if we die, we always die in relation to the Lord. So whether we live or die we belong to the Lord. For Christ died and lived again for the very purpose of being Lord of both the dead and the living. Then why should you criticize your brother? Or, why should you look down on your brother? Surely, we shall all stand before God to be judged, for the Scripture says: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bend before me, and every tongue shall make acknowledgment to God.'" So each of us must give an account of himself to God. Then let us stop criticizing one another; instead, do this, determine to stop putting stumbling blocks or hindrances in your brother's way. I know, and through my union with the Lord Jesus I have a clear conviction, that nothing is unclean in itself; that a thing is unclean only to the person who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is hurt because of the food you eat, you are not living by the standard of love. Stop ruining, by what you eat, the man for whom Christ died. Then stop abusing your rights. For the kingdom of God does not consist in what we eat and drink, but in doing right, in peace and joy through the Holy Spirit; whoever in this way continues serving Christ is well-pleasing to God and approved by men.
Live like free men, only do not make your freedom a pretext for doing evil, but live like slaves of God.
Therefore, as we have so vast a crowd of spectators in the grandstands, let us throw off every impediment and the sin that easily entangles our feet, and run with endurance the race for which we are entered,
No one who continues to live in union with Him practices sin. No one who practices sin has ever seen Him or come to know Him.
and am prepared to punish any disobedience, when your obedience is made complete.
Stop letting anyone deceive you with groundless arguments about these things, for it is because of these very sins that God's anger comes down upon the disobedient.
But if anyone has the world's means of supporting life and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how can love to God remain in him?
Now if you practice loving only those who love you, what credit do you get for that? Why, even notorious sinners practice loving those who love them. And if you practice doing good only to those who do good to you, what credit do you get for that? Even notorious sinners practice the same. And if you ever lend to people expecting to get it back, what credit do you get for that? Even notorious sinners practice lending to one another, expecting to get it back in full.
Now about the foods that have been sacrificed to idols: We know that every one of us has some knowledge of the matter. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If a man supposes that he has already gotten some true knowledge, as yet he has not learned it as he ought to know it. But if a man loves God, God is known by him.read more.
So, as to eating things that have been sacrificed to idols, we are sure that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but One. For even if there are so-called gods in heaven or on earth -- as there are, indeed, a vast number of gods and lords -- yet for us there is but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things and the goal of our living, and but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live. But it is not in all of you that such knowledge is found. Some, because of their past habits with idols, even down to the present moment, still eat such food as was really sacrificed to an idol, and so their consciences, because they are overscrupulous, are contaminated. Food will never bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat it; we are no better if we do. But you must see to it that this right of yours does not become a stumbling block to overscrupulous people. For if somebody sees you, who have an intelligent view of this matter, partaking of a meal in an idol's temple, will he not be emboldened, with his overscrupulous conscience, to eat the food which has been sacrificed to an idol? Yes, the overscrupulous brother, for whom Christ died, is ruined by your so-called knowledge. Now if in such a way you sin against your brothers and wound their overscrupulous consciences, you are actually sinning against Christ. So then, if food can make my brother fall, I will never, no, never, eat meat again, in order to keep my brother from falling.
Yet I hold it somewhat against you that you have among you some who are clinging to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to set a trap for the children of Israel, to entice them to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to idols and to commit immoral practices.
