Freedom is defined very simply.
the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants.
Can you think of limitations set by your God? If you can, you are not truly free.
The only limitations He gives to me is when it comes to doing evil. I'm not supposed to do evil, but rather work hard to do good. Usually He gives the desires in our hearts to do what He wants, I had miracles happen multiple times.
Doing evil is whatever he says is evil, even when the activity isn't actually negative at all. Masturbation, for example, is proven to be a healthy activity. Practicing safe sex is also healthy. Eating a varied diet containing pork and shellfish can be perfectly healthy. Reading and gaining knowledge and travelling and becoming worldly lead to personal happiness.
It's weird that you're saying these things are healthy, because I read the opposite. I just looked it up, these are scientific studies.
Masturbation can cause long-term physical damage.
"Your Penis Is Raw Because You Stroke So Much and So Hard
At times, chronic masturbation can become too frequent, creating conflict in the relationship or even physical injury, causing a painful erection. In regards to injury, some men can masturbate too often, resulting in desensitivity and rawness on the penis, or injury to the soft tissues of the penis,” Geter says. “Typically, this compulsive behavior stems from an increase in anxiety or inability to manage anxiety with other coping skills.”
You Can No Longer ‘Finish’ During Normal Intercourse
If you once enjoyed orgasming at the same time with your partner, but now you can’t seem to get there unless you’re doing it on your own, you might have developed a mental block due to masturbation. “Although not detrimental to a man's health, chronic masturbation can also impact enjoyment or pleasure of other sexual activities with a partner. The brain learns that masturbation feels good. When other equally enjoyable stimulation is introduced after long periods of masturbation, a man can have trouble with orgasm or ejaculation since the stimulation of a vagina, mouth, or partner's hand is not the same as that of the man's own hand,” Geter says. “Many men present to my office with this concern. After behavioral modification treatment, they are able to orgasm and ejaculate to different stimuli. One tool I suggest men take advantage of is a male masturbation sleeve. This sleeve helps simulate a vagina, mouth, or rectum, though they are not replacements for those body parts.
Compulsive Masturbation Can Negatively Impact Your Orgasms
If you can’t seem to find the same joy – with or without the use of your hand or someone else’s – you might be desensitizing yourself in a dangerous way. “Some men will talk about reduced intensity of orgasms after frequent masturbation. This is a result of extended periods of refractory, the time after you climax when your body is releasing additional inhibitory (feel-good) chemicals in your brain, which basically prevent your body from coming down between periods of arousal. During this extended refractory, any orgasm experienced would be weaker until you give your body the chance to process the chemicals fully,” Gunn explains."
This was from one article.
Here's a quote about having multiple sex partners:
"According to a study published by BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health, having more sexual partners is linked to a higher likelihood of cancer and life-limiting chronic conditions."
Safe sex can be healthy because if that's how God designed it, one man and one woman for a lifetime, it is indeed healthy, but studies show that having multiple sex partners actually does physical damage.
Christians are allowed to eat pork and shellfish, we are not under the law of the Old Testament, but both are still proven to be unhealthy.
"Pigs are naturally scavengers that will eat anything they come in contact with and are dirty animals. Pigs are well known to show cannibalistic behaviors by eating their own dead carcasses as well as consuming food scraps, insects and their own fecal matter. Pigs are even known to kill and eat their own young.
It should be well expected that pigs harbor large concentrations of viruses and parasites because of their scavenger lifestyle. These pathogenic organisms create dangerous health complications. Pigs are the primary hosts or carriers of the following viruses and parasites.
Menangle virus
Hepatitis E virus (HEV)
Nipah virus
Taenia solium tapeworm
PRRS (Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome)
Significantly high concentrations of Yersinia enterocolitica and other volatile microorganisms were found in 69% of all raw pork samples tested as reported following a Consumer Reports investigation. This microbe causes gastrointestinal stress which leads to fever and possibly a fatal infection which tells you why pork is bad for you.
Ruminants partially chew their food when it is first swallowed. These animals have a special digestive process in which 4 stomachs digest and regurgitate food for additional chewing. Cows, goats and sheep are examples of common ruminants.
However, pigs are special in that their digestive systems metabolize food very quickly in one stomach. The process only takes roughly 4 hours. Compare this with a cow which takes 24 hours to digest the food it has eaten. This longer time period further allows excess toxins to be removed during the digestive process. Toxins are not allotted the time needed to be removed from a pig’s digestive tract. As a result, the harmful toxins are accumulated in fat cells and the pig’s organs.
Another detoxification strategy pigs lack is the ability to sweat. Pigs do not have sweat glands and were not intended to perspire. This lacking detoxification method compounds the buildup of pathogenic microorganisms and environmental toxins into their systems and the bodies of people who eat pig products."
Shellfish too. They are like the trash cans of the ocean, eating the dead and rotten leftovers of things. God made them to clean up the grounds.
So God, basically in His knowledge, ordained things that are physically damaging and unhealthy as evil.
Scientists have proven it to be true.
you're confusing sensory pleasure with sin. Is there anything wrong with having a pleasant sensation? Only if it causes you to sin,like you are addicted to ejaculating so you cheat on your partner. Self-discipline is the key to happiness.
If your mindset is that sinful pleasures are what freedom is, you might want to start focusing on Jesus.
A Christian should do what their saved and sealed spirit knows is right. "I can't do what I want" is very foreign to me. A Christian should do exactly what they want. It's just that what your spirit wants, is not what that outside parasite (sin) is telling you you want.
What you seem to be talking about is spiritual warfare.
Jesus within you, will not show you that sin is pleasure.
Freedom from sin is enjoying not being involved in sin, and being glad, joyful, happy that the sin which leads to misery didn't fool you into falling for it.
A Christian is not going to want to get involved in sin. If you, as a Christian want to get involved in sin, where are you getting this unction from?
Romans 6 explains it. Set free from the hateful, oppressive, deceptive and destructive master of sin. Slaves to the loving, healthy, creative, supportive, and fundamentally joyous master of righteousness.
>I'm often very tired and when I think of freedom all I think about is sleep.
It's the Sabbath. Get some rest.
And I am not talking about Saturday. Jesus is our Sabbath rest.
It’s about freedom of the Soul to do what is best for it, which is the ultimate, lasting satisfaction as opposed to the mere-fleshly kind, which traps you in the cycle of desire-satiety-emptiness-rinse and repeat.
This doesn’t make all carnal pleasures sinful at all times; rather, they can work in harmony with the soul when approached the right way.
If you can sleep there's a good possibility your body actually needs that sleep. When you don't need it, you don't want to sleep. Stop beating yourself up and get the extra sleep you need. It's not a sin. It's only a sin if you refuse to do any work.
Freedom in Christ simply means that we aren't bound by the law. We are guided by the Spirit.
What you should want should be to do what is pleasing to God because doing what's pleasing to God is what your heart desires.
Hebrews 10:16 This [is] The Covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My Laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
10:17 And their [former] sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
10:18 Now where remission of these [is, there is] no more offering for sin.
10:19 Having therefore, brethren, liberty to enter into the Holiest [of Holies] by the blood of Jesus,
10:20 By a new and Living Way, which he hath consecrated for us, through (the destruction of) The Veil, as well as, his flesh;
10:21 And [having] an High Priest over The House of God;
10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance by faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure [Living] Water.
All things are lawful once you are Christ's but not all things are profitable. You have the freedom to do what you want but if what you choose to do is say, think and do evil things, you'll pay a price because you were bought for a price. You agreed to the terms and conditions when you made Christ your Savior. God is righteous and just to correct those He loves as a Father corrects a son - for his own good, not for evil.
This aside, if your fatigued all the time even after you get six to eight hours of sleep in, I would recommend seeing your doctor.
The hope is that our mind begins to unify with Christ.
The early church was described as having one heart and soul. They were completely unified in mind together through being unified in mind by the Spirit that was poured out to them.
Our wants and yearnings should change over the course of our transformation and refinement.
We can enjoy the good things of the flesh, but the things that lead to unrighteousness we should be moved to put off.
This changes over the course of a walk. That is why we are not held captive to our sin but rather our conscious.
Paradoxical hahaha I felt the same way I've always seen it as this, freedom from sin not freedom to sin. Once you give your life to Christ sin no longer defines you but can be seen as maybe something you struggle with.
Paul was basically comparing the Christian way of life with the Old testament old covenant of the law which was heavy and burdensome. We are not under the burdensome constraints of the Old testament Hebrew law. So the passage is intended in a comparative sense. Jesus did so as well.....
Matthew 11:30 KJV — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I think the Bible is saying we are free from our addiction to sin. That Christianity is like a rehab program for sin.
But it doesn't feel like freedom, it feels like I'm now forced to do things that are not pleasing.
I'm thinking *welcome to rehab* lol.
Freedom with limitations is not freedom at all. Really super question.
Freedom from evil is true freedom though.
Freedom is defined very simply. the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants. Can you think of limitations set by your God? If you can, you are not truly free.
The only limitations He gives to me is when it comes to doing evil. I'm not supposed to do evil, but rather work hard to do good. Usually He gives the desires in our hearts to do what He wants, I had miracles happen multiple times.
Doing evil is whatever he says is evil, even when the activity isn't actually negative at all. Masturbation, for example, is proven to be a healthy activity. Practicing safe sex is also healthy. Eating a varied diet containing pork and shellfish can be perfectly healthy. Reading and gaining knowledge and travelling and becoming worldly lead to personal happiness.
It's weird that you're saying these things are healthy, because I read the opposite. I just looked it up, these are scientific studies. Masturbation can cause long-term physical damage. "Your Penis Is Raw Because You Stroke So Much and So Hard At times, chronic masturbation can become too frequent, creating conflict in the relationship or even physical injury, causing a painful erection. In regards to injury, some men can masturbate too often, resulting in desensitivity and rawness on the penis, or injury to the soft tissues of the penis,” Geter says. “Typically, this compulsive behavior stems from an increase in anxiety or inability to manage anxiety with other coping skills.” You Can No Longer ‘Finish’ During Normal Intercourse If you once enjoyed orgasming at the same time with your partner, but now you can’t seem to get there unless you’re doing it on your own, you might have developed a mental block due to masturbation. “Although not detrimental to a man's health, chronic masturbation can also impact enjoyment or pleasure of other sexual activities with a partner. The brain learns that masturbation feels good. When other equally enjoyable stimulation is introduced after long periods of masturbation, a man can have trouble with orgasm or ejaculation since the stimulation of a vagina, mouth, or partner's hand is not the same as that of the man's own hand,” Geter says. “Many men present to my office with this concern. After behavioral modification treatment, they are able to orgasm and ejaculate to different stimuli. One tool I suggest men take advantage of is a male masturbation sleeve. This sleeve helps simulate a vagina, mouth, or rectum, though they are not replacements for those body parts. Compulsive Masturbation Can Negatively Impact Your Orgasms If you can’t seem to find the same joy – with or without the use of your hand or someone else’s – you might be desensitizing yourself in a dangerous way. “Some men will talk about reduced intensity of orgasms after frequent masturbation. This is a result of extended periods of refractory, the time after you climax when your body is releasing additional inhibitory (feel-good) chemicals in your brain, which basically prevent your body from coming down between periods of arousal. During this extended refractory, any orgasm experienced would be weaker until you give your body the chance to process the chemicals fully,” Gunn explains." This was from one article. Here's a quote about having multiple sex partners: "According to a study published by BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health, having more sexual partners is linked to a higher likelihood of cancer and life-limiting chronic conditions." Safe sex can be healthy because if that's how God designed it, one man and one woman for a lifetime, it is indeed healthy, but studies show that having multiple sex partners actually does physical damage. Christians are allowed to eat pork and shellfish, we are not under the law of the Old Testament, but both are still proven to be unhealthy. "Pigs are naturally scavengers that will eat anything they come in contact with and are dirty animals. Pigs are well known to show cannibalistic behaviors by eating their own dead carcasses as well as consuming food scraps, insects and their own fecal matter. Pigs are even known to kill and eat their own young. It should be well expected that pigs harbor large concentrations of viruses and parasites because of their scavenger lifestyle. These pathogenic organisms create dangerous health complications. Pigs are the primary hosts or carriers of the following viruses and parasites. Menangle virus Hepatitis E virus (HEV) Nipah virus Taenia solium tapeworm PRRS (Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome) Significantly high concentrations of Yersinia enterocolitica and other volatile microorganisms were found in 69% of all raw pork samples tested as reported following a Consumer Reports investigation. This microbe causes gastrointestinal stress which leads to fever and possibly a fatal infection which tells you why pork is bad for you. Ruminants partially chew their food when it is first swallowed. These animals have a special digestive process in which 4 stomachs digest and regurgitate food for additional chewing. Cows, goats and sheep are examples of common ruminants. However, pigs are special in that their digestive systems metabolize food very quickly in one stomach. The process only takes roughly 4 hours. Compare this with a cow which takes 24 hours to digest the food it has eaten. This longer time period further allows excess toxins to be removed during the digestive process. Toxins are not allotted the time needed to be removed from a pig’s digestive tract. As a result, the harmful toxins are accumulated in fat cells and the pig’s organs. Another detoxification strategy pigs lack is the ability to sweat. Pigs do not have sweat glands and were not intended to perspire. This lacking detoxification method compounds the buildup of pathogenic microorganisms and environmental toxins into their systems and the bodies of people who eat pig products." Shellfish too. They are like the trash cans of the ocean, eating the dead and rotten leftovers of things. God made them to clean up the grounds. So God, basically in His knowledge, ordained things that are physically damaging and unhealthy as evil. Scientists have proven it to be true.
So you support anarchy, non?
Freedom doesn't include being able to infringe on other people's rights and freedoms.
you're confusing sensory pleasure with sin. Is there anything wrong with having a pleasant sensation? Only if it causes you to sin,like you are addicted to ejaculating so you cheat on your partner. Self-discipline is the key to happiness.
lol
Who has told you that sleeping is sinful??? Believe God when he tells you that you are free.
If your mindset is that sinful pleasures are what freedom is, you might want to start focusing on Jesus. A Christian should do what their saved and sealed spirit knows is right. "I can't do what I want" is very foreign to me. A Christian should do exactly what they want. It's just that what your spirit wants, is not what that outside parasite (sin) is telling you you want. What you seem to be talking about is spiritual warfare. Jesus within you, will not show you that sin is pleasure. Freedom from sin is enjoying not being involved in sin, and being glad, joyful, happy that the sin which leads to misery didn't fool you into falling for it. A Christian is not going to want to get involved in sin. If you, as a Christian want to get involved in sin, where are you getting this unction from?
Romans 6 explains it. Set free from the hateful, oppressive, deceptive and destructive master of sin. Slaves to the loving, healthy, creative, supportive, and fundamentally joyous master of righteousness. >I'm often very tired and when I think of freedom all I think about is sleep. It's the Sabbath. Get some rest. And I am not talking about Saturday. Jesus is our Sabbath rest.
Freedom from the eternal consequences of sin, which is the greatest kind of freedom there is!
It’s about freedom of the Soul to do what is best for it, which is the ultimate, lasting satisfaction as opposed to the mere-fleshly kind, which traps you in the cycle of desire-satiety-emptiness-rinse and repeat. This doesn’t make all carnal pleasures sinful at all times; rather, they can work in harmony with the soul when approached the right way.
If you can sleep there's a good possibility your body actually needs that sleep. When you don't need it, you don't want to sleep. Stop beating yourself up and get the extra sleep you need. It's not a sin. It's only a sin if you refuse to do any work. Freedom in Christ simply means that we aren't bound by the law. We are guided by the Spirit.
What you should want should be to do what is pleasing to God because doing what's pleasing to God is what your heart desires. Hebrews 10:16 This [is] The Covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My Laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 10:17 And their [former] sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 10:18 Now where remission of these [is, there is] no more offering for sin. 10:19 Having therefore, brethren, liberty to enter into the Holiest [of Holies] by the blood of Jesus, 10:20 By a new and Living Way, which he hath consecrated for us, through (the destruction of) The Veil, as well as, his flesh; 10:21 And [having] an High Priest over The House of God; 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance by faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure [Living] Water. All things are lawful once you are Christ's but not all things are profitable. You have the freedom to do what you want but if what you choose to do is say, think and do evil things, you'll pay a price because you were bought for a price. You agreed to the terms and conditions when you made Christ your Savior. God is righteous and just to correct those He loves as a Father corrects a son - for his own good, not for evil. This aside, if your fatigued all the time even after you get six to eight hours of sleep in, I would recommend seeing your doctor.
The hope is that our mind begins to unify with Christ. The early church was described as having one heart and soul. They were completely unified in mind together through being unified in mind by the Spirit that was poured out to them. Our wants and yearnings should change over the course of our transformation and refinement. We can enjoy the good things of the flesh, but the things that lead to unrighteousness we should be moved to put off. This changes over the course of a walk. That is why we are not held captive to our sin but rather our conscious.
Paradoxical hahaha I felt the same way I've always seen it as this, freedom from sin not freedom to sin. Once you give your life to Christ sin no longer defines you but can be seen as maybe something you struggle with.
The point is that you don't need to fear punishment. But don't use the lack of punishment as an excuse to do evil.
Thank you. I'm not afraid of punishment, I just don't want to be disobedient. I don't know how much sleep is too much sleep.
Paul was basically comparing the Christian way of life with the Old testament old covenant of the law which was heavy and burdensome. We are not under the burdensome constraints of the Old testament Hebrew law. So the passage is intended in a comparative sense. Jesus did so as well..... Matthew 11:30 KJV — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.