Asbury’s 2024 Set Apart Week took place January 22-26 in Hughes Auditorium. Reverend Dr. Carolyn Moore, the lead pastor of Mosaic Church in Georgia, was the Chapel speaker on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Moore also led the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening services. Dr. Chris Bounds, Professor of Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary, led the evening service on Thursday night and spoke in Chapel on Friday morning.
The week’s theme was “Freedom from/Freedom to,” which detailed the life that God has called us to in leaving the sin that entraps us in our pasts and embracing the freedom that he has set before us in our futures.
During Monday morning’s Chapel, Rev. Dr. Moore spoke about her own personal testimony and her journey of stepping into the freedom that God calls us into. She also taught about those two kinds of freedom, “freedom from” and “freedom
to,” and how we are to lay down the things that separate us from Jesus in order that we may be able to receive the good things that he has for us.
During Wednesday’s Chapel, Moore encouraged us through Galatians 5:13-14 and spoke about God’s ability to speak a new word over our lives. Moore gave us three things we have been called to be free from and three things we are free to engage in.
Through God’s power, we are free from bad religion and the pressure to be perfect. We are free from trying harder and the terrible burden of guilt. We are also free from chaos and the sin in our lives that causes it.
We are free to engage in the things of Jesus that he gives us the power to do. We are free to love. We are free to choose and accept holy options for our lives. We are free to heal from the sin that has entangled us and get out of our own heads.
To wrap up Set Apart Week on Friday morning,
Dr. Chris Bounds spoke about the nature of love and the freedom we have been given to truly adore Jesus.
“Love is at the very center of the Divine life,” Bounds said. He outlined the difference between what love does and what love is. Bounds taught that love has two co-equal parts: the desire for union and fellowship with someone or something and the alignment of the will with those desires to work toward that union. We have been given the freedom to love Jesus Christ, not just out of fear or because of what he has done for us, but simply because of who he is.
Walking in freedom was the central theme of the 2024 Set Apart Week. It was a week that saw hearts and hands lifted in surrender to Jesus and renewed minds bent toward loving the Lord and stepping into the holy life that he promises us.