IT IS FOR FREEDOM THAT CHRIST HAS SET YOU FREE!

I always remember knowing a lot about ‘who God was’ when I was growing up. I started drinking when I was 14 years old. My parents were divorced during my Senior year of High School and things just seemed to go downhill from there. Looking back, I believe that my first sign of rebellion against God was at age 12 when I told my aunt that I “didn’t have to walk the aisle of the church and be baptized”. All my friends were doing it and she obviously loved me and wanted me to be saved. I continued my drinking on up into my adult life and got really good at it. So good that people “didn’t know I was even drunk!” If you were to look at me, I seemed like any normal High School student with normal challenges to overcome just like anyone. I mean after all we did live in a nice house, had brand new cars, nice clothes on our backs, and attended the private school in our town. Most people thought our family had it ‘made’. Not sure if you’ve been there before but it was just hard to stop and realize that there were serious issues that needed to be dealt with in my then young life and at the pace I was on, there just didn’t seem to be a good stopping point to quote ‘deal with them’.

Drinking became my main theme. Everything I did involved me taking another drink. I always said, ‘I’ll never be a drunk, I’ll never be an alcoholic, it’s not a problem for me’. NEVER. Well, never say never. Because it definitely became a problem. By the end of my 20 year drinking span, it had become such a force in my life that I was willing to steal blank checks from my mother’s check book and forge here signature to purchase beer for my habit.

When my friend’s father in law talked with me about Jesus, he gave me a clear choice. It didn’t involve a 12 step program, any particular duties that I had to remember to fulfill, no obligations that I had to keep up with. NOTHING on my part was needed other than my consent! I had to give up! Ha! So let me get this straight, I was taught all my life to ‘work hard’ … ‘never quit’ … and yes … ‘never give up!’ Let me ask you, does any of this sound familiar to you? I mean, let’s face it, we all are taught basic life values by our parents and most of us would say that we’ve been taught to do all of these and make the most of our lives as we grow older. Giving up made absolutely no sense to me to be honest with you but I knew that I wanted a better life. I was miserable. I had no drive. All the dreams I had as a child were long forgotten and I had minimized my life to barely getting by and was happy with that. I was in debt. Life had not turned out the way I had planned. In reality, I had already given up, I just didn’t want to face it.

So what I really was looking for that day I met Jesus was a little ‘religious counseling’. I did not get up that morning and plan to meet the King of Kings. It just never crossed my mind. When I heard that God commended His love for me in that ‘while I was yet a sinner’ Christ died for me, it blew me away. I would describe it like a slide show flashing through my mind that day. There were very vivid images of so many times that I absolutely could not stop drinking. I was so hooked on the feeling of having a ‘buzz’ that I just could not find a stopping point. I remembered all the times that I totally disrespected my mother, who loved me so unconditionally that I can’t even describe to you. She has more grace than anyone I know, other than my Lord. She never judged me. She just would keep hoping that I would change. Can you believe that I would have the nerve to go behind my mother’s back and take checks from her checkbook and forge her name so that I could buy another drink? I can… now that I know the truth about our sinful nature. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It’s simple, until you know Jesus personally, you can’t help but be a slave to sin. It’s just a spiritual fact. So stuck in slavery, I was dragging through life and staring at utter failure day after day. Until this day. It was incredible. My pastor told me I would never be the same. Strange, I just didn’t hear any sirens or fireworks, no big loud roar of claps and cheers. Just a loud calm that came over me like nothing I’d experienced in my entire life. I had been forgiven. Yep, the minute I asked, it happened. He said He would, and He did. Knowing Jesus is so simple. I can’t believe the number of times I missed out on the chance to say yes to Him. But finally at 34, life began again.

So here’s what happened: He set me FREE.

 I asked Him, and He did what He said He would. Forgiven. I had been chained to sin. All of my life I had been lost and in slavery to sin. Which lines up exactly with what God’s word says about sin. All of us have done it, all of us owe the penalty for it. What’s penalty? Death. Yes, the wage for sin is death. Death spiritually, separated from God in a real place called hell. Death physically, separated from this earth. I know. It’s bad. Death is a scary thing to begin with, especially if you have no idea what happens next. Now I do. I get to spend eternity with the one who paid my sin debt in full, Jesus Christ. Somebody asked me if I knew exactly where heaven was and I told them, it’s where Jesus is. What else do you need to know? Now, you don’t have to believe it. I pray though, that you will. Every addiction I ever had was broken off of me that day. I know it sounds too good to be true. But it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. Alcohol, Sexual addiction, pornography, smokeless tobacco, foul mouth talking (which took a little time), all fell off of me. Chains that had me completely paralyzed to live a free and abundant life, GONE. FOREVER.

And so I hope that this snapshot of my life and heart will be an encouragement to you to know this; that if the Bible says: “for whom the Son sets free is free indeed” … that is exactly what it means. FREE INDEED.

or should I say: FREE … A LOT!

Now that is definitely … good news!

Mike Turner

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