“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.” Galatians 5:1
Galatians is truly a wonderful
book. It is about freedom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free.” This is such good news we can
hardly believe it. In fact, most of the
time people don’t believe it. If, when
they hear this good news and come to Christ they feel a rush of happiness at
this freedom, they soon replace it with some level of bondage again.
Even though we long for freedom
with our whole being, we human beings find it hard to STAY free! Why is that?
For some, it’s because we don’t
think we deserve it. DUH!! Isn’t that the whole point of the
gospel! We didn’t deserve it and God
loved us and sent his Son who paid the price of our undeserving selves. Last night I heard a story that comes from Leviticus. The Israelites were told to bring in two
pigeons as offerings. The one was killed
and they put its blood on the other one and set it free. Bingo!
Jesus and I come before God – Jesus was killed and by my acceptance of
that God puts his blood “on” me – I fly free.
Good news!
There are other psychological
reasons that we don’t STAY free. One is
pride. Accepting God’s offer of a free
exchange doesn’t leave me any room to brag.
I am standing there psychologically naked before God. That is uncomfortable – since the time of
Adam who went and found some old leaves to cover up his nakedness! I feel I must get rid of my sense of
uncomfortableness by doing something – even leaves will do. But that is a slippery slope. First leaves, then skins. Then Eve looks at the two of them and says, “We
can do better than this. These skins
have no style!” And she creates a whole
industry based on looking good.
Voila! --
Looking
good to each other and to ourselves begins to take over and cover up the
reality that, yes, we are naked before God but we don’t have to be ashamed
anymore because God himself has covered us, through Christ, and we are really,
truly, forever, freely OK.
When will we ever learn!
These intrusions on our freedom are so
sneaky. There is the religious cover-up,
also. We accept Christ and are happy. We come to church to be with other people who
know Christ (because our old friends don't understand us anymore), but after a while we notice these people
aren’t all happy. They have problems,
and we still have problems, and someone says, “Come over here – I have found a
fix for this problem.” And someone else
says, Going to church often will help
the problems. And then it’s, “Serving
the poor will help us feel better and fix the problems.” Or “Serving the poor in Africa will really put us in good stead and make us happy.”
And, voila! --
Next
thing you know we are dragged down the same path of thinking – that our own
actions will get us right with God and people.
Help!
Although there are many paths to
losing our freedom in Christ,
there is always the same simple way out.
Come to the cross.
Kneel there.
Confess that you can’t do
it.
Receive God’s forgiveness and ask
for his help.
Open your heart to His Spirit
doing it through you.
Get up and go with God.
Breathe.
Isn’t freedom wonderful.
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