"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to blah blah blah..." Sorry, that's all I can remember. I think it goes on to say that we choose freedom, and that it is our right.
So I wonder - how much freedom do we really live in? Freedom seems to get pared down a little. I am free to drive a car, but not free to drive it if I don't have a license and insurance. I am free to worship as I want, as long as I am willing to endure certain judgment and scrutiny from the 'main religion' of the country (which is supposed to be Christian - how can we have real freedom of religion if we define ourselves by a certain religion?) We have freedom to carry a weapon - to bear arms (but only in a very few states and only in certain ways). We have the freedom to go where ever we want whenever we want, but the law has the freedom to stop us where ever they want whenever they want (and to detain us without cause for a certain number of hours).
I see so many people who struggle with personal freedom, fighting two battles for that freedom. The first is freedom in the face of outside influences. Being out of the institutional church and believing that I am the church (and that 'church' isn't something you go to) has gotten me much scrutiny and judgment. How can I call myself a Christian (by the way, I prefer not to) if I don't go to church? I must be back sliding....
The second struggle that I see for personal freedom is in the battle with ourselves. Really living in freedom that is reigned over by the love of God is a terrifying thing. What I mean by that is that living in the freedom that Jesus died to give us means trusting God's love completely. It means choosing to agree with the truth that nothing can separate us from his love - not our exercising of freedom, not our belief system, and not our sin. It means choosing to believe that we really are free from any works to earn Papa's love, and it means that we have the freedom to screw up our lives just as much as we want and still be loved. It means that we stop trying to earn or control or deserve or manipulate God's 'already given' love.
I am continually appalled at how many people choose to be in jail, even after you throw the door open. Evidently freedom scares the hell out of people. Or maybe people have had the hell scared into them, and freedom from the damnation of hell is too terrifying. After all, there is something very comforting about knowing that we could just make one wrong choice and wind up in an eternal lake of fire. I had a therapist email me this week who had the courage to say that the number one thing that destroyed the spirits of the people he worked with was the hell doctrine abusively used by the religious institutions in his area. "If you can't win them to God, scare them to God". I wonder what happens to our freedom in the face of that belief system?
What if God loved you? What if there was nothing you could do about that? What if his love preceded his holiness, his vengeance, and his wrath? What if he actually WAS, in the every essence, love, and everything else was man's distortion of Him? How would that change your freedom?
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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2 comments:
Mike, What great thoughts. We, thats my wife and I, have just been whisked out of jail(church) by the Lord, and we are loving it. We are free to go spend the day buying roses at the rose farm, instead of being at church. We are free to visit family and friends WHENEVER we choose. We can even go to church when we want to. We are having more FELLOWSHIP and time ministering to people in our churchless state than we ever had during our church time. We are now part of the Church.
We have been released. Never again will I enter the "rat-race" and "power-struggle" which is to be found in the traditional and formal church.
Thanks for your thoughts. That was good.
You're right on Mike, I love those last two paragraphs, that is just so much the heart of the Father and the first step in experiencing the Kingdom. A guy who is a spiritual father to me once said that if he wasn't getting cut down by the proponents of law, (self) righteousness, and religion then he wasn't preaching grace and love nearly enough.
I guess you could say the amount of criticism that we receive from religiosity is in some ways the barometer of how much we ourselves have accepted the Kingdom of God's love in our own lives. Or we could just be flat out wrong, but even then, those who are religious minded are compelled to correct and make right...I'd rather be wrong and loved.
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