Day 23-29

Philippians 2:25-30
..."but I understood that I needed to send Epaphroditus, my brother in the Christian Family, fellow worker in spreading the Gospel, and soldier in the spiritual battle whose honor is equal to the king, and messenger who is of no great status, and a minister to my needs
for he has been longing to see you all, and has been deeply troubled in spirit because you were all so worried about him because he was ill.
you were right, he was was sick and near death and in fact almost did die, but God had mercy on him and me; sparing him from death and me from more grief than I could bear.
So I am sending him back with special urgency (understand that I am giving my best away!), so that you may see him for yourself and rejoice so that you can be free from worry for him and yourselves as you see with your own eyes the power of God to save!
So receive him in the Lord with all joy and delight, and highly value such people as him! People like him who don't think about themselves, who are free from worry! He risked all danger and even death for the work of Christ...and this was not even the task he was assigned, but the one you could not complete!"

I just returned Sunday night from an event called Remix put on by Rock the World Ministries. The event is a time of prayer, worship and study where High School and College Students are trained to turn the world upside down for Christ in their generation.

One of the breakout sessions was led by a couple who have a passion to help Christians understand what it means to live as free people who are still bond-servants to the King of Glory.

Thier ministry "Free-people-Free-people" follows the life that all our players in the last reading in Philippians led; Jesus was free through His relationship to His Father to pour His life out as a ransom for many. Paul was set free to pour his life our for the Philippians and Epaphroditus did the same for them all....the ones that were set free enslaved themselves to those who were not free yet so that they might be free.

Have you ever heard the Negro Spiritual "follow the drinking gourd"? It's a song that was sung in the slave quarters down South, a freedom song sung to the captives that the way to freedom was to follow the "drinking gourd" the Big Dipper, for it was North, and there is where freedom was to be found.

How did these slaves learn of the song, and of the direction of freedom? Slaves who had realized that freedom was worth dying for risked their lives, literally, to return and show the captives the way to freedom. Free people free people.

Jesus, the First Fruit to break free from sin and death, returned to tell Paul on the road. Paul risked death to tell the slaves of sin that the drinking gourd had come; Jesus, the Well of Life, the Living Water.

Have you found your freedom? Are you still sitting in the Promised Land, or are you going back to free others?