Begin with 2 minutes of silence and stillness before God.

Slavery was legal in America for 245 years. Sadly, Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery. The Global Slavery Index currently reports 49 million victims of modern slavery (human trafficking, forced labor, or exploitation). Knowing what you know of slavery, would you exchange freedom for slavery? No one would.

However, Colonel P.H. Anderson, like many slave owners of his day, rejected freedom and wanted to return to the comfort of what he knew: southern life with the convenience of free labor. He invited his freed slave under Lincoln’s new law to return to the plantation. A former slave of Colonel P.H. Anderson, Jourdan Anderson’s “no” to his offer was comically creative. Jourdan told his former slave owner if he paid his family for 30 years of free labor, he would consider his offer. Colonel Anderson’s debt to his slave was the equivalent of over $250,000, which was not worth exchanging freedom for slavery.

Today, Paul desperately pled to the Galatians they were choosing slavery by living under the servitude of Abrahamic and Mosaic laws. Jesus’ death replaced Old Testament laws with a simpler plan of love and grace, offering greater freedom. Blood sacrifices were no longer necessary to bridge the separation between God and man. God’s people no longer needed The High Priests to act as their intercessors for prayer. Instead, The Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, dwelled inside every believer (Galatians 4:1-7). Knowing this truth, Paul asks in Verse 9, how they could turn back to becoming slaves again when they no longer had to follow Old Testament laws. They were exchanging their freedom to return to slavery only because it was familiar and comfortable.

What have you become comfortable with that you know is not in line with God’s will for your life? Who or what are you enslaved by? When we become slaves to anyone other than God or anything other than using our spiritual gifts for God’s Kingdom, we surrender our will and are bound. Is it tobacco, alcohol, or gambling? What parts of your life have become your idol over true freedom of worship in Christ? Does your drive for success in your career or finances come before your success in your ministry? Is pride, lust, greed, or hate your masters?

Paul writes in Romans 6:17-18, “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” To be a slave to righteousness means we are no longer slaves to the law of Abraham or Moses, but we are slaves to obedience and holy living.

Let today be Day 1 of your emancipation from slavery to freedom in Christ.

Take 2 minutes to reflect in silence.

Reflection:

• Are you facing a difficult season that has left you feeling anything but free? Care Groups with areas of focus (life care, spiritual care, divorce care, and financial care) will begin meeting again on September 5 on the Hunt Club campus at 6:00 p.m. Attend launch night to see where you can begin to embrace your freedom. To find more information and register, go to: www.venturechurch.org/care
• Prayer: Father, thank You for faithfully loving me as Your adopted son and daughter whom You set free from the chain of sin and death. Thank You for Your redemptive plan that ensured my freedom and hope to share all of heaven with You. Father, forgive me for finding comfort in what is familiar but is not Your will for me. Please continue to redirect my focus to the freedom You have for me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Family Devo: Galatians 4

By: Lauren Strickland

When partnering with your family to know, love, and follow Jesus, we strive to create and share content filtered by the Head-Heart-Hands model.

Head: the knowledge of God and His Word | Heart: the personal connection from scripture | Hands: a missional mindset 

Head

While God gave us rules to help us love Him and others well, His love is not something we earn or lose depending on how well we follow rules —God’s love is unconditional. People in the Bible (like the Galatians) were always forgetting this! The Galatians thought God would love them more if they kept all the rules all the time —and less if they didn’t! So, they made up a bunch of rules they thought would please God and spent all their time trying to keep them—rules about what to wear, eat, and do on certain days of the week. Paul wrote to remind them that pleasing God is about faith (trust) in Jesus; not our ability to follow all the rules all the time. Only Jesus (God’s Son) is perfect. Paul reminded them that Jesus died for every rule ever broken and defeated death so we could be free from the guilt and fear of not keeping all the rules all the time. Paul told them that because of Jesus’s sacrifice, we become sons and daughters of God too, and no behavior could ever change that. God’s family is forever.

Heart

Who loves you? Think about your family. Do they love you more when you keep all the rules all the time? No! Do they love you less when you don’t? No way! They love you always, just the same! You don’t have to earn the love of safe, trustworthy people in your life, and you can’t ever lose their love either. Do you know that God loves us no matter what?! He does! He loves us simply because He made us and chose us to be His most treasured creation. He calls us FAMILY. We are His children just as Jesus is His child. The Creator of the universe calls us His child. How wonderful is that?!

Hands

• Pair up with an adult in your family and take turns reading these truths below as a reminder of God’s great love for us!
• Adult: There is nothing you can do to make God (or me!) love you any MORE than He already does!
• Child: Nothing (no perfect test scores, perfect games, or perfect behavior!) could make God prouder than He already is proud of me!
• Adult: There is nothing you can do to make God (or me!) love you any LESS than He already does!
  
• Child: Nothing (no mistakes, missed goals, or mess ups!) could make God love me less. I am His child, and He knows and loves me best!
  
• Adult: God (and I!) love you because we’re family.
  
• Child: God’s family is forever, so through whatever, I can trust His love for me

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for calling us Your children. Thank You for always loving us. You take care of us, and You forgive us. You stick with us no matter what. Help us remember how much You love us today. Thank You that we never have to earn Your love and we can never ever lose it either.