Many people know the verse: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). But there are those who ignore the first word of this verse. This verse cannot be read isolated. The first word is: “and”. The “and” at the beginning suggests that the rest is the conclusion of something that the Lord Jesus said earlier. So, the question that remains is: what did He say before?

The answer is in the previous verse: “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed” (John 8:31). This verse is not so well known because it requires a bit of individual responsibility.

In other words: “If you abide in Me, you will be disciples indeed (because there are many deceiving disciples)”. And for them to know the truth, first, the word of truth had to be inside them. And if the disciples practised and did not forget what they learned, this truth shall make them free.

Did you see how easy it is for people to deceive themselves with loose verses from the Bible? They are verses that only promise (because taken isolated, they speak of promise) but do not speak of the duties of the one who believes. There are numerous cases of this. For example: “For by grace you have been saved (…)” (Ephesians 2:8). It seems that everyone will be saved. But that’s not what the context says. People approach the Word of God with emotion and not with intelligence. And many of them will lose even their Salvation because they ignored what the Word of God said.

There is a condition: you must listen and remain for the Word to make you free. That is, the Word of the Lord Jesus cannot be a fleeting thing that, in 30 seconds, you change the focus and move on with your life. The hearer of the Word of God who does not practice it is like a man who looks in the mirror and soon forgets what he saw. But some hear the Word; it enters them; they live the Word and are freed by it.

You have to let the Truth in for it to make you free. It has to inhabit you. You have to think about it day and night. It has to be in front of your eyes, and it has to be in your mind when you wake up and until it’s time to sleep. Then you will learn to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

A challenging situation is a person who hears the Word of God every day, but the Word does not enter them. This is the state of a person who is only a hearer, not a doer.

But just as the prophet Ezekiel spoke to the valley of dry bones and ordered them to return to life (Ezekiel 37), I prophesy to you now: receive life, get out of this spiritual death. May the warmth of the Holy Spirit fill your soul now and remove this coldness from your conscience. And you, with the little strength you have, cling to this word I’m sending now and may it warm you and help you get out of this rock bottom. And that, as of today, you are no longer a hearer of the Word but a doer. No matter what you feel, you will do what God tells you. And you will remain in this Word from now on. And this Word will make you free.

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