I will never forget the revelation I had presented to me by a bible teacher many years ago. His story had to do with living the life of a gold-plated sinner with no interest in God things at all. One day he happened to fall into an old unused oil well with no one around for miles, and no way out on his own.

No matter what else was going through his mind at that time, he—for the very first time in his entire life cried out to God for deliverance. There just was no other option. The next thing he knew he was standing on top of the ground. A miracle had been performed for him, and he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ.

He began to witness to this miracle to his many sinning friends, and when they pooh-poohed his tale, he took them for a ride into the oil field to throw them into the same well in which he had learned to trust God. A strange but true story of how we get warped in our understanding of what it means to serve God.

Saint Paul speaks to this kind of Christianity in Galatians 2.4-5: ‘This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.’ Some folk get the idea that there is only one way to serve God, and all other efforts are false and must be destroyed—for the good of the believer, of course.

The Lord knows exactly what each of us needs to be convinced of his verity as God and King, and he is willing to reach out to us. Our task is to stand firm in what he has done in our lives that the whole truth be known. Paul concludes: ‘We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.’ STAND FIRM IN YOUR REDEMPTION—BE FREE IN HIM!