Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - A Prayer For More Freedom | New Testament | John 8

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

What's holding you back? What sin do you find yourself turning to over and over again? Are you living for something lesser than Jesus? In today's episode, Tanya looks at John 8 to share a prayer for more freedom in your life. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: John 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. It's probably not something we think about very often, but what are the ways you exercise your freedoms on a daily basis? Do you read or listen to what you want or what you like in the morning to get your news? Do you go to a job that you were able to choose? Are you able to earn as much money as you deserve to earn in your job? Are you able to have discourse in your community about property zoning or new laws or taxes? Do you vote? These are freedoms that have been hard won. They didn't just come to us, but someone fought for them, maybe even sacrificed their lives for them.

We might not think about freedoms much, but they absolutely change our lives. In John chapter 8, Jesus says, truly, Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. Now what this means is that without the help of Jesus, there is no escaping the slavery of sin,

the gripping pattern of sin. But because of Jesus, there is no escaping the truth that we have been set free. We know what it feels like to be a slave to sin, but do we know what it feels like to be a person truly freed by the sun? Jesus was speaking to people in this chapter who didn't know what freedom as citizens of a government felt like. They identified with the heavy yoke of being under the watchful eye of a system that tolerated them at best, hated them at worst, and put up every obstacle it could think of to keep them from succeeding or, changing their position in life. So Jesus' words about freedom would have made them think about a different kind of citizenship, where their freedom was secured. This was a citizenship in God's kingdom. This was a kingdom where they were loved and accepted, where they were called to be the

best that they could be as they matured in Jesus. This was a kingdom where they were meant to grow and flourish. The laws and systems that hovered over them from the Roman government were to temporary, they wouldn't last forever, but they had a more lasting home with Jesus. It would have been encouraging to think of the promise of true freedom from even a government point of view, and it would have made sense to them for Jesus to talk about their sin in the same light. Why would they live for lesser things than Jesus? Why would they choose to love their sin more than Jesus? When it was akin to living like a slave to a temporary king, instead of living for the true king and his eternal promise. Now today, we're going to do something a little

different on the podcast, and we're going to take those words from Jesus and turn them into a prayer for us to live out and understand better our true freedom. A prayer for more freedom. In Galatians 5-1, Paul wrote, For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. We can't live. in freedom from sin without Christ. We can't get it from inside ourselves or from self-care, or from a great book, or even from serving others. We can only live in freedom through Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ. We know we have been freed by your saving work on the cross. We know you came as a babe, lived a perfect life, and suffered and died for our sin. Because of you, we are free from the penalty of sin. but also because of you, we are free from the cords of sin that suck us down and under. We pray for more freedom, more freedom from impatience. We stand in lines that don't move as fast as we like and traffic that doesn't seem to know how to use roundabouts. We teach children who have more questions than we want to answer.

And we have kids that don't go to bed so we can watch our shows on Netflix. We have friends that repeat the same tire service. habits, and we have aging parents that ask the same questions over and over, and we get impatient and unkind. We assume we are better drivers, better friends, and better classmates. We think we deserve silence or time to ourselves. But this is not the path to freedom. Jesus, you showed patience with all the questions of the Pharisees, all the lack of understanding of the disciples and all of the habits of the sinful people that came to you grant us more freedom from our impatience so we can love others the way you do and they can

actually see your light instead of our hard hearts. We pray for more freedom from our unmet desires. We have things we wish we would have accomplished and things we wish we had never dipped our toes in, we want more recognition than we have and less responsibility than we've been given. We want to be someone to the right people. We want to be the right person to someone. We want to be good at everything and we don't want to fail at anything. But Jesus, we know that having everything and being good at everything is a lot more dangerous than we think. But we need you to help us not want these things more than we want you. We wake up every morning with all of your presence and all of your promises, but we trade it out piece by piece for the things we want more. Grant us more freedom from our

unmet desires so we can live as people who are satisfied in you. Lord Jesus, we pray for more freedom from our doubts. When we have to wait on news or when we get unexpected, news, our minds get flooded with doubt. We worry about what's going to happen to us and how our lives will change. We worry about who's going to take care of us and who's got our back. But Lord Jesus, don't you promise to keep us forever? Don't you promise that nothing can snatch us out of your hand? When people came to you with doubt in the New Testament, you let them touch you and you talked with them. Grant us more freedom from our doubts about your presence and your goodness with each new trial that we face. Let us remember what you have done for us in the past so we can be more quick to

move from doubt to trust. Finally, Lord Jesus, grant us more freedom from ourselves. We have insecurities that come out as self-righteousness because we don't deal with them. Please break the chains of lingering shame and inadequacy. Please break the cycles of comparison. We make others feel bad because we feel bad about ourselves, but this is not the way you feel about us. Lord Jesus, you love us at our worst. There is nothing hidden from your sight. Let us take off our masks and see ourselves as your father does, those covered in the blood of the lamb. If you stand in our place we don't need to put on a show, cover ourselves up, hide, compare, or put others down. Grant us freedom from ourselves so we can live in union with you and your spirit that gives

truth, counsel, and the seal of acceptance to our weary souls. Lord Jesus, you have freed us indeed, give us more freedom. Amen.