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“Seeking ‘Boundless Freedom’ in Christ”

I see the limits to everything human, but the horizons can’t contain your commands!

[Psalm 119:96 The Message]

Cora S. writes:

As I traveled across America and tried to study for a test in Medical Terminology, I turned to the Bible because I wanted to memorize something new that would challenge my life for eternity instead of just memorizing modern medical words for a test. The words jumped out at me because usually people think of laws as things that bind, yet here it was used in connection with “boundless freedom.” Eugene Peterson puts it as follows:

“I see the limits to everything human, but the horizons can’t contain your commands!”

I have found these words to be so true in my life. The pathway of following God’s truth has led me to such freedom that I rejoice in it and hope that individuals around the world will know the freedom I have found. I committed myself to following Christ as a fifteen year old but immediately felt the confinement of my feelings as I thought about being follower of Christ in the halls of my junior high. The perfection that Christ calls us to seemed so impossible in light of dealing with classmates in the hallway. I was told that others had the boundaries of only dating Christian boys and that seemed confining at the time with all those cute guys out there. I’m thankful now that I chose to marry a man whose greatest desire in life is to follow Christ. It has given me so much freedom in life. I have been loved, cared for, married for 34 years and had incredible adventures in the process of going down that road of life following Truth. God has trained me by obeying His laws and when I disobeyed he still continued to train me.

I am yearning to find words that would express the incredible freedom that obedience to God’s words bring. Just recently several people have asked me questions about being forgiven so “why is it not OK to continue in sin?” and other lines of thinking which lead to a total lack of freedom. It is not just in saying we are going to follow Christ but in actually doing it for a lifetime. I have been bound to Christ’s laws, not because I had to be, but because He loved me so much that He gave His life for me, so I thought I would try to live life His way. As His love held Him to the cross, so my love for Him makes me want to follow His truth. The more I follow His truth the more I want to follow it. Of course I am a human and it has been impossible for me to completely follow even the ten basic commandments of God’s law but in Christ I have been free to get up and try again to enjoy His perfection and the high calling of the life of excellence that He has called me to.

So many people speak of boundaries these days but I do not often hear of the way of “boundless freedom.” I hope that you too can enjoy the freedom of following God’s commands today, not because you have to, but because it is the path to “boundless freedom” as it says in Psalm 119:96 NIV:

“To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless.”

As you can see in the picture, I love following Jesus singing down the trail of life. His trail is eternally boundless though it seems narrow to some and is impossible without being in Christ. It leads to freedom now and forever.