Freedom Is A Nice Word

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another. [Galatians 5.13-15]

Being a "Christian" has, over the years, been made out to be a lot of things. Sadly, the least of these has been to be like Christ in His greatest accomplishment - the one He just happened to unequivocally demand - that we take up our cross and follow Him (like Him - in His name).

Paul speaks of freedom in today's OYCB reading. Oh, we've assumed our life of freedom in Christ is to speak the name of Jesus over our finances and our health. We've been bold in declaring the name of Jesus when threatened by personal harm. But where is the name of Jesus and His freedom when it comes to laying down our dreams, desires and aspirations so that someone else might experience theirs?

Freedom is a nice word, but perhaps we need to rethink it.

We should not think for a minute that, "we cannot help others until we help ourselves." Nothing in the Bible or the life of Jesus even begins to promote freedom as self-centeredness! The Cross stands in glaring defiance of such nonsense! If Jesus had adopted the deceptive idea that He must first love Himself so He could better love others, He would have necessarily freed Himself from going to the Cross!

To be clear, faith is not opportunistic. Faith was not given for us to get what we want - but instead for us to get what God wants (we might want to think about this for just a minute - or a lifetime). Although there are undeniable blessings that are promised upon the life of one who walks in faith, the genuine, Jesus-like walk of faith is a walk for someone else's benefit, not our own! Faith works (expresses itself) by love (Galatians 5.6) and Jesus defined God's kind of love like this:

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. [John 15.13]

We have indeed been called to live in freedom. We have been called to live in Christ. We have been called to live in faith. The freedom we have been given in Christ is freedom from the relentless taskmaster of "self" (including "doing all the right things" - obeying the Law of Moses). We have been given freedom to quite literally (and like Jesus) ignore ourselves and our own needs so that others might benefit.

The Church today preaches and teaches all around this subject but never really "cuts to the chase." We love the "faith scriptures" to get our new car or even pay our electric bill, but if it comes down to us doing without so someone else might have theirs... <<<crickets>>>

Harsh? No, but I will tell you what harsh is: "harsh" is a self-inflicted bondage to eternity in hell because we refused to freely give Jesus full control of our lives! "Harsh" is binding ourself each day to the task of seeking the "best version of me" instead of binding ourselves to the freedom of our cross! "Harsh" is "loving ourselves" on earth only to find that the deception of doing so eternally invalidated heaven's freedom for us, regardless how many times we went to church!

Jesus' demand to love your neighbor as yourself, echoed by Paul above, was in fact not harsh but designed to deliver us from "harsh!" But as Paul teaches the Galatians and elsewhere, faith in Christ is required. Faith in Christ is freedom.

The freedom given by Jesus is, first and foremost, freedom from "self." In the context of Paul's letter to the Galatians, that freedom from "self" was not being bound to the Law of Moses, circumcision, and the likes, but as Paul mentioned, that freedom from "self" included not serving (loving) ourselves as a matter of priority, but loving others.

Okay, okay, I get it... I suppose we can take this way too far... Right? I am sure Jesus was just a anomaly and didn't literally mean we should actually "die" to anything in demanding we "take up our cross..." right? Right? Right? Come on, ...right??????????????????????

Besides, if anything said here is even remotely correct, the Church as we know it today is seriously off-course. And, we know that just couldn't be the case... right?

I don't really know where this is going... But I know this, it has me cornered. And, I dare say, it has others cornered too. What do we do?

First, we allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit inspire action (as opposed to condemnation that just festers and does nothing). We repent of thinking for even a moment that we can hang on to anything in and of our lives. We ask Jesus to show us our cross, and we spend every waking moment climbing on that cross as it benefits others so that we might have the fullest testimony possible of Jesus Christ to them. We encourage others to do the same, maybe even helping to shoulder their cross. Mmm. This is salvation - this is the work of the Holy Spirit - this is freedom. Whatever it is that we have been doing up until now... well, it speaks for itself... The goal is Jesus - and this is what Jesus said and did:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,  and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” [Luke 4.8-19]

The most damning thing we can do is nothing. Even though trusting in Christ makes one perfect in God's sight in heaven, it's still a mess here on earth, We are like babies and adolescents - we make messes of things - and the bigger and older we get, the larger the messes. The point I am making is this: if we are running to our cross and we crash and burn, at least the skid marks will prove the direction we were going! Are we running to the freedom of the cross? Or something else?

Father, I know You are working on me. May I be found yielded and pliable. Better still, I don't want to just bend... I want to break. I want my will broken, not bent. I don't want my will reformed, but replaced. I don't ask that You bless "my" direction, but that I be blessed in "Your" direction. I want Jesus to be my life and my life to be Jesus. Help me, please. I know there is not much more time...