The challenge we all face at one time or another is to become free. You say, “How can this be a challenge? We all want to be free!” But my question for us to honestly answer is “do we”? Well I can’t think of any better way to describe it than this…it is unnatural for you and me to be in slavery of any kind. Since the severance of communion between The Father and His Children, humanity has been born into an unnatural environment that socializes the vulnerable into, what a college professor of mine would call non-living peoples, “pawns”. This socialization process is deadening to the soul, so much to the degree that Life/ freedom seems unnatural to the slave. The slave is even suspicious of such a thought.
The greatest tragedy is to exist without recognizing what has been done and what is continuing to happen. Over the past six years, I have undergone a de-socialization and HUMANizing process that has overwhelmed and energized my, unbeknownst to me, PERSON-hood. This search for Freedom began when I became aware of my vulnerable humanness. I decided at that point to live NATURALLY. Thus, I no longer wanted to be slave.
The remnant of enslaved pawn-existence is still noticeable in me. To be honest it is difficult to forget the patterns of old. But today is the new day, to take a step into unknown territories, where Freedom is closer and LIFE becomes the known reality I was made to live.
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Jesus told us we would know the truth, and the truth would set us free. James told us God gives discernment generously to all who ask. The psalmist bares all before God, “What you’re after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.” (Psalm 51)
Christian apologists can prove God exists if they like, Christian scientists may prove He created the world, and all the philosophers, theologians, and preachers in the world can formulate, interpret, and proclaim the character and nature of God, but until His presence, His love, goodness, and faithfulness penetrate our deepest heart of hearts we will not live free. We remember, “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” (Galatians 5).
“It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out – in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?” (Galatians 5)
If we don’t believe and receive God’s love, we cannot truly love others. If we don’t receive care we will quickly become unfit to care for others. We cannot truly give love to another if we have not accepted God’s love. But it is also true that we cannot receive or give love in isolation of any kind. The mystery of the dynamics of love between God and each of us is that the different relationships cannot finally be accomplished one after the other. It is in the pure act of love that one most fully receives God’s love and becomes a true reflection of the love of God to another. God’s love is characterized by a primary concern for others above Himself; when we live out in reflection of this love – then it suddenly becomes our own.
“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsiveness 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?” (Galatians 5)
“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 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.”
“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much 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.”
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