Freedom - part 2

This concept of freedom in Christ is hard to grasp.  It is hard to understand.  It is even harder to live.  As people we love the comfort of checklists.  My wife, early on in our marriage, tried to get me to make lists.  The problem was that I lost my list.  But lists are a great way to organize things.  They help us stay on track.  They also help us see where we aren't being effective or efficient in our lives.  The problem is that we then transfer this to our relationship with God.  If I managed my relationship with my wife and girls by a list, would that be truly considered love.  Or would it lessen my love expressions to just a "To Do" list.

Check out what Paul says about this free life in Galatians 5.16-23:

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.  Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.  These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival,; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.  I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know.  If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way?  He brings gifts into our lives, must the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.  We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.  We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

 Which picture represents your life--the life lived by the flesh or the one controlled by the Spirit?  Our freedom comes not from obedience, but our obedience comes from our freedom.  We are free to live life according to whatever way we want.  Are you living life your way or God's way?

Freedom - part 1

When I say this word I want to shout it out like William Wallace in the movie Braveheart, I just don't want to be in the position he was in as he screamed it for the last time.

Freedom is such a great word - such a great concept.  Are any of us really free though?  What does freedom look like?

Christ has set us free to live a free life.  So take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.  I am emphatic about this.  The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered.  I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens.  When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace.  Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit.  For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything.  What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. Galatians 5.1-6 (MSG)

Many of us have been set free in Christ, but we have chained ourselves to religion.  We are set to keep the laws of Quiet Times and verbiage of prayer language.  We think that if we keep these rules and regulations then God will love us more.  But what happens when we miss a day of Quiet Time?  I don't know about you, but I feel guilty.  I begin to beat myself up.  I think that I'm a sub-par Christian because of it.  I have lost my standing with God because I missed a check box.

Is this really freedom?  How does this match up with the life that God intends for me?  I'm not talking about the prosperity gospel, but I have been set free from the law of sin and death.  Christ's death on the cross paid the price for my freedom.  I should live free.

Many of us live life as a bird in a cage.  The owner comes along and opens the cage door to give the bird the freedom to fly and soar, as he was created to do.  But the bird stays in the comfort and security of the cage.  It might step out for a bit, but it will return to the cage and stay there with the door wide open. 

We are like that.  Christ has set us free but we remain in the cage because it is safe and secure.  The outside world is a scary place.  But we have been set free to soar with the wings of eagles.  This is done through our relationship with Jesus.  Freedom is simply put: faith expressed in love.