Free

So the Fourth of July is in a week. Next Wednesday to be exact. How blessed we are to live in a country that still (for now) allows us the privilege of worshipping as we feel is right and saying what is on our hearts and minds. We are a free people.

Freedom is an amazing thing. It is usually bought with the price of blood. America's freedom had a huge price tag. Thousands of lives were given to purchase it. And that freedom has to be repurchased and laid on the altar of service and aid for other countries as well. Men and women - give of themselves so that others might be able to live without fear of being killed for being weaker and unable to defend themselves.

I could expound on this ad nauseum. As I started writing I continually had to restrain my fingers from typing of all of the blessings we receive in the US and how amazing it is. And of course how our constitution has been infringed on lately....BUT that is not the point of my writing today. There is a freedom that has been purchased that tops even the freedoms we enjoy in the United States.

Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Christ came to purchase my freedom. At great cost. His life and the anguish of carrying every sin that was laid upon him to settle that cost. The life he laid down was so that you and I can be free. He laid it down for everyone who would believe. And that freedom stands in spite of what happens in our government. It surpasses anything we have heard of in any of the wars that have been waged.

The fact is - I do not always feel my freedom. There is always something that binds me and causes me worry. My behavior is atrocious. I need to do this and that and the other to please and serve and make things right. I must do a better job of making myself behave in the way I feel God and Family and Friends need me to.

Those burdens I carry alone. And I am not meant to. I chain myself to them every morning. And I am not meant to.

I am not meant to.

My insistence on that is totally discounting the sacrifice that was made so I can live free.

Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The more I read, pray and love - the more free I become.

Of course that doesn't mean I can go and rob a bank, or tell lies and live contrary to the Word. I tell my kids every day - "Obedience is your ticket to freedom". The more they obey me the more I can trust them. That means they can go and do and I will know that they are doing what I have asked - what they have been taught. If they can do that - they get to do more. The reasons I ask them to obey is to protect them. To keep them safe. To guard them from harm - physically, mentally and spiritually. So it is simple - when they do not do as I have asked...their freedom is restricted.

It is the same with God. He asks the same of me.

Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

My protection from heart ache, from physical harm, from mental torment - is in mind when he asks me to abstain from the acts of the flesh.

His desire for me to prosper and live well are the rewards of abstaining from things that will harm me. And the reward is freedom.

I am rebellious by nature. If you tell me I cannot do it - I am going to do my best to prove you wrong. But this is my sinful nature. It is something I should fight against to continue in my freedom. I need to crucify that desire so that I can avoid the heartaches that insue because of my rebelliousness.

There are many people that I have grown to love and respect over the years. They do not agree with me. They think I am weak and use my faith as a crutch. I am okay with that. I don't require their approval to love them and to want them to find the same freedom I have found. But I have also found freedom in not feeling the burden of making them understand. They will do what they are called to do. And of course because I love them, I want them to understand and believe as well. But I do not have to defend God. I just have to live well before them and love them well. That may require a hard conversation or two. It means I have to stand up for what I believe. I may even have to deal with hearing them say things that may hurt. But remember - I am a people pleaser. Part of my freedom is releasing myself from that as well. The hard conversations will just be knowing that I am saying things they find offensive. I don't like to offend. Ever.

But - I find joy in knowing that I am living faithfully. I find that I am happy in the simplicity of seeking to please God and knowing that in doing that I will be serving many well because of it.

I thank God for this.

I am free! It is an amazing feeling. I pray I relate it well in all I say and do.