By: Faith Foo Title : From Salvation to Restoration

Every civilization go through certain process of fighting for freedom. Some countries like Libya are still fighting for their freedom. Malaysia fought for our country freedom half a century ago and we got it. But does it means with the freedom, we can do anything we like, or the leader can do anything they like for their own pleasure? No! We certainly dont want leader like this, because thats not the purpose of getting the freedom. I heard such statement before that says : If theres no great leader for the country, fighting for freedom is useless, because its just changing the type of bondage from different rulers. I cant help to agree with this. A country with true freedom will prosper & advance. So goes to our individual life. Gal 5:1ff Christ has set us FREE, but we MUSNT go back to slavery. Freedom is having the ability & willingness to do what we ought to do with joy& desire. The freedom carries responsibilities. How much freedom we have depends on how much we understand about our freedom. What freedom are we talking about? Heb12:1 Sin, bondages, past hurts have imprison our spirit. The physical imprisonment cant be compared to the spiritual imprisonment as the second will follow you always in whatever you do, wherever you go & can be a whole life bondage. Therefore we need the salvation of Jesus Christ to set free. This salvation at 2000 years ago is once & for all. All who believes, shall be save& be freed. With this freedom, we gotta run the race!! Eph2:10. We got to exercise our freedom to walk away from sin, walk into freedom and abundance. Lk4:18-19, Isa61:1. Jesus operated in total freedom, yet he knows his mandate& purpose. He summarizes the mandate of all who has the freedom like Christ in 5: 1. Preach the gospel to the poor. The Kingdom Gospel is the greatness of Gods Kingdom, His operation of love, His abundance of grace & mercy& His Kingdoms purpose. This complete abundance loving gospel will set those poor free! The poor are those who felt & think lack in certain areas in life, such as skill, confident, knowledge& monetary which is just one of the very easily recognize area. Therefore, as children of God, we have the same mandate like Christ to preach the Gospel to the poor & set them free from seeing the lack, blind from the abundance, so that they can operate in Gods way. 2. Set the captives free Captives are those who felt they cant do this, cant do that, always think everything is impossible. Mt19:26. In man it is true that lots of things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible! As we grew up, we were taught with lots of warning, sometimes, such warning have overwhelme us to think impossible. E.g: Only study well, score well can make a good living in life, so a lot of people felt they cant do great things because they didnt studied well. Fear creep into their life& therell be no faith even in their prayer. Thats why prayer of a captive mindset wont come true. As Christ has set us free, why many still bond in captivity? Could be stubborness, ignorant or even

By: Faith Foo

lazyness of a person, therefore tonight we pray that Gods Word truly set us free from captivity & we will multiply this freedom to people around us as we always remember to preach the gospel to the poor & set the captives free! 3. Recovery of sight to the blind 2Cor5:17. Blind in spiritual hinders us from seeing the Kingdom, seeing the move of spirit. What we dont know, we wont see, because we dont know what to see. Then well not be able to see what we should see. Thats sad as we missed out the season of God because we dont see the move. Lk19:41-42. Jesus were anguish due to the blindness in spirit of people in Jerusalem even while he was with them. Often, we as Christian, taken God for granted, enjoy Gods word throuugh pastors teaching every Sunday, enjoy the blessings of God, carelessly live. Then we can easily fall into blindness in spirit that well not be sensitive or accurate in God anymore. Thats not the true freedom that God gave. God want us to see Him, His Kingdom, His move, His passion, His people. We, as children of God has the responsibilities to keep our spiritual eyes open, focus & open the eyes of our bro& sis to see Gods purpose in their life too. Dont wait till too late like what Jesus said in Lk 19:42. Dont wait till the things are hidden from us. As a cell group family, lets celebrate this freedom from God with thanksgiving heart that live out the purpose & responsibilities of: Preach the gospel to the poor, set the captives free & recover the sight to the blind. With that, we can together live in abundance that comes through the freedom! Discussion: Are you truly free today? In which area that theres bondage that hinders you? Are you free in sharing the gospel? If not, why? Finally, lets count the abundance of blessings by sharing what blessings that youve received last year, so that we may encourage one another as we share. Prayer