The Stewardship of Freedom

You're listening to my morning devotional podcast, episode 1562. Today's episode is called The Stewardship of Freedom.

Hey there, we're the Alessies, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a five-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast.

Good morning, everybody, and happy Tuesday. My name is Rochelle Alesi, and welcome to another episode of My Morning Devotional Podcast. Yes, we are a daily podcast, five minutes Monday through Friday. We want to be with you on your way to work, on your way to school, in your home, whenever you can. We want to spend five minutes with you just talking about the Lord and discovering the beautiful things that the Lord has written in his Bible and how it applies to you and me today. And this week we are, we have a fun series. Yesterday's episode was called God's Providence. Today is called The Stewardship of Freedom. And yes, we are leading to the 4th of July this Saturday. So we want to make sure that we take a week to honor our country and everything. And even if you are not from the United States, I know your countries probably celebrate their days of independence. So we have that in common still. And I promise you that we're still making this week um appliable for every area of our life that we can. And so again, I'm speaking from my 28 years of experience. I'm no pro in this. You and I are in this together. But I love that we're uh diving deeper into some of these things because we truly get to see the Lord through many generations and how his plan has been perfect all along, and you and I get to play a part in that. And today I want to talk about freedom and um the stewardship of freedom very specifically. And there's a verse in 1 Peter 2.16 that says, Live as free people, but to not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil. Live as free people, but to not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil. The truth is, guys, is that freedom is a gift that carries responsibility. I love the the Bible. A lot of what we read in the Bible is about freedom, about being free. We know that God died for us so we can be free. He has forgiven us from our sins, and now we get to live a free life. And the Bible here is saying, live as free people, because many things in our life can keep us in bondage. Sometimes our cultures where we live, the mentalities, what we've been raised on, sometimes even like what we come from, it almost feels like we live in a certain bondage and though we are stuck to something. But the Bible's directive is live as free people, but do not use your freedom to cover up evil. So it's beautiful because on this side of life, we are Christ died for us. We live on the other side of Christ's crucifixion, which means we are free. And what I love about that is our nation here in the United States is actually freedom, is one of our foundations and what makes our country. Like I mentioned yesterday, I was not born here. I lived in Costa Rica for 12 years of my life. I came here to America when I was 12. And I can see how the freedom that we have, that we get to operate in is such a blessing. It's opened the door for me to live the life that I live now. And part of it is what the Lord did, his sacrifice and the way that he's guided my life, that I'm here today, and I'm so blessed to be here with all of you. But this freedom that we have cannot be taken lightly. Over the years, I believe the freedom has been misconstrued. Freedom is not meant to be used as a I can do whatever I want card. I think freedom, freedom, it actually required a sacrifice. You and I have freedom on this side, but it required a sacrifice on the other side. And that's what makes freedom a gift. We talk about freedom being a gift, a sacrifice had to be made for us to have this gift today. So we should steward freedom. When we get a gift for our birthday, it means so much for it means so much to us. And we know that somebody had to go use their time, their money, and their effort to get something special from us. That's sacrifice. Somebody sacrificed their time, somebody sacrificed their finances for us to have what we have today. Some of you come from families where your parents had to sacrifice all they had to be able to be where you are today, to give you the life that you have today. We know the sacrifice the Lord did. We know here in our nation the sacrifices that some of the presidents and our armies had to make for us to be a free country. And we want to make sure that we honor that. So we have a gift, guys. We have the gift of freedom, but we should not use the gift to cover up evil. If that's a gift, we use it for good. We take care of it. When we get a gift, every time we wear it, we are like, we choose places to wear it. We don't just wear that gift or use that gift for whatever. We actually use very specific times and we make sure that it's good. It's the same thing with our freedom. We have to make sure that when we are using our freedom, it's for good, that it's honoring to everything that came before us, and that it actually is a good use of this freedom. We should not be using freedom to cover up evil. And this is what the Bible actually says. So, in the same way, when we use our freedom, we should use it for good, not to cover up evil. That is my takeaway for you today. Freedom is our gift, so let's steward it. That's why I call this episode the stewardship of freedom. Let's make sure that we don't forget the freedom that we have as Christians in our nation, and let's use it for good, not to cover up evil. So let's pray. Dear Father God, I want to thank you for the sacrifice that you did many years ago. That sacrifice is the foundation today in our nation of freedom. Because of what you did, because of the things that others have done, we now get to live in a free nation. We get to use this freedom. And I pray that you will not let us forget that freedom is a gift that we need to steward right, Lord. This is not something that we use for evil or something that we use as a card to say, hey, we can do whatever we want. That's not what freedom is. Freedom is a gift directly from you, Lord. So I pray that you will give us the wisdom to use this freedom right to honor your name and to actually use it for what you created it to be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So there you have it, your five minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.