Category Archives: learning to walk in freedom series

Freedom Fridays: Embrace Grace, Part 2

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Hope you all survived last week’s Freedom Friday break! I actually meant to post something brief, but the cold I had been fighting for 5 days worsened – and I’m still sick! But I’m going to push through and post anyway 🙂

So brief recap from 2 weeks ago:
Understanding grace is key to learning to walk in freedom.

A few years into my Christian walk, I realized that while I believed in my heart that I was saved by grace alone, I was demonstrated a different core belief through my actions: Through rules and my own effort, I could overcome my life-controlling issues.

Let me tell you from experience that trying to be free through rules and human effort doesn’t and won’t work. In fact, it injects you into a cycle that makes YOU responsible for your own healing. I’ve found it only heaped shame and condemnation on my head when I messed up.

So how do we overcome the cycle of sin? And what does God want us to do when we struggle? Does He want us to walk around like a dog, with our tail between our legs? Or should we beat ourselves up for a certain amount of time, the amount of time being in direct proportion with the seriousness of our sin?

Of course it sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, but you know you’ve done it!

As I realized the futility of what I was doing in response to my struggles, that not only does it not work, but it’s actually not Biblical, a friend gently suggested I begin to more thoroughly explore what grace is.

I go to a charismatic type of church in a denomination with a holiness background. The denomination as a whole has a history of really liking rules 🙂 My church is quite grace-based and doesn’t have any weird rules, but I’ve heard of churches where in order to serve in any capacity, you have to sign agreements that you won’t drink alcohol, watch R-rated movies and other extra-Biblical rules. Some of the rules may be a good idea (I don’t drink, for instance, since I have alcoholism in my family), but they are not matters of Biblical mandate, but rather personal conviction.

In any event, I remember when I first heard someone share a thorough teaching on grace at a conference in 2004 (he followed it up with another teaching on the law). Honestly, as I sat there, I didn’t believe what he was saying. I mean, he was quoting the Bible, and using the verses in context. It seemed to line up with what I knew about God and what His Word says about grace. But I couldn’t see past all the rules I had set up in my life.

Grace just sounded too good to be true.

“When you preach grace, unless your conscience accuses you of license, you haven’t preached grace.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Grace really is too good to be true. Maybe that’s why we try to accomplish through rules & own own effort. Yet God is very clear in how He expects us to react when we mess up:
Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

God doesn’t react to our struggles and sin in the “angry fire darts from heaven” way that we think He does. Sin says something about the condition of our hearts, and ultimately, God just wants our hearts.

Look at the Pharisees. Isaiah 29:13:

These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Externally, they seemed to do everything right. They followed all the rules, but they wouldn’t give God their hearts.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

I’m not teaching some sort of loosey-goosey sloppy grace message where sin doesn’t matter because it’s all covered by the blood anyways. That’s not what I’m saying at all.

The Bible is clear: rules have no power to restrain. Human effort will fail us.

Clark Whitten says “The greatest constraining power on earth against sin in your life is love.” The only thing that has the power to restrain us from sin is truly knowing, understanding and experiencing His love and grace. When we have a full grasp of His love and His grace and just who He is and what He’s done, we don’t want to hurt Him. We are less and less tempted to sin because we love Him, because we have experienced His grace and know His tender heart for us.

God wants to connect with our hearts! He wants us to know and believe that He really is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides, and He really can meet our needs. That through His grace, we really can learn to experience freedom from our life-controlling issues.

There may be a part 3 to this post. I guess you’ll find out next week 🙂

Freedom Fridays: Embrace Grace, Part 1

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We know the bottom line: that God is the freedom giver. But how exactly do we find freedom, and how/who does it come from?

The answer is grace.

It is for freedom that Christ set us free, right? How did He set us free?

Through salvation by grace alone.

From the Gospel according to John, chapter 1:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:24

All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 8:9

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

2 Corinthians 12:9

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Galatians 5:1

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

We need to understand what Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished, in order to learn to walk in freedom. Jesus’ death on the cross took care of all our sins – those we committed before we were saved AND those we committed since then.

This really was one of the keys in helping me to overcome my struggle with habitual sin. I used to try to achieve obedience, freedom and mastery over my sin by my own strength. I would pray and ask for God’s help, of course; but then when I’d fall, I’d beat myself up for a good amount of time because of my fall. This behavior fit right in line with how I treated myself before I became a Christian, especially as it pertained to my eating disorder. If I ate too much (in my opinion) or didn’t exercise enough, or if I woke up one day and my weight was too high, I’d belittle myself and make resolutions about how to change
whatever it was that I didn’t like.

Galatians 3 says “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”

This way of thinking made me pretty legalistic. I made all sorts of rules for myself (and others) in an attempt to measure my faith as well as theirs. If I had boiled down my thinking, my core belief seemed to be that it was easier to follow rules than to try to live in the reality of grace.

It reminds me of Paul’s warning to the Colossians:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Let me tell you from experience that rules alone will get your nowhere fast.

I just read this today: “Self-striving nurtures self-hatred.” Yes and Amen.

I cannot, cannot do this myself. I never could. That’s precisely why Jesus died on the cross.

More in Part 2, which may or may not be next week. I’m going out of town and will have to see if I have time to post!

Freedom Fridays: Act Like a Free Person, Part 2

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Freedom Fridays: Act Like a Free Person, Part 1

Recap: we as believers should not be surprised when we fall into old habits and patterns. That’s why I call it “learning to walk in freedom”. We need to proactively make choices to act like a free person.

Acting like a free person means in those “moments of maybe”, as a former pastor called them, those moments where we are tempted:
Tempted to sin
Tempted to see ourselves in any other way than how God sees us
Tempted to believe the lies and fall back into old patterns, tempted to take our unhealthy/unhelpful thoughts and run with them

In those moments, we choose to act like a free person.

A free person would realize the temptation she is experiencing is common to man. That person would choose to act as if she were free rather than act as if she is still enslaved to that temptation and has to give in.

A free person would say to that dark thought, “That’s not what Jesus says about me!” A free person would say to that boundary violation “I will leave the room if you continue to speak to me that way.” A free person would say, “In the past, my emotions have felt overwhelming, so rather than choose to feel them, I choose to medicate my emotions through food, sex, power, escape. I can make different choices today, knowing that I can experience these emotions and they won’t kill me because I can handle anything with the Freedom Giver and other Freedom Seekers at my side.”

So you see this isn’t just about saying no to sin. It’s about saying no to bondage in all its forms and saying yes to throwing off the chains.

Don’t forget it’s a process. We’re back to the analogy of training, running a race. When we were slaves to sin, our body and mind was trained that, when faced with temptation, we sin, we give in to the negative thoughts, we let our boundaries be trampled on. So like an athlete needs to discipline himself or herself to train, whereas it feels much more natural to sit on the couch and watch TV, we too need to train and discipline ourselves so that when we are faced with temptation, we, like Joseph when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him as told in Genesis 39, flee the scene rather than give in to old habits and say yes.

We read this in Romans 6: “From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.”

There are a million different reasons why we choose to old behaviors/patterns/choices rather than choosing to act free. It’s not just because it feels good or natural. We sin because we have emotions, feelings & experiences that we have trouble dealing with. We sin because we lack coping mechanisms. We sin to avoid uncomfortable feelings. We feel lonely, we feel rejected,, we feel unlovable – so we go out & try to hook up with someone. The feelings are still there, but we get to escape them for awhile. We sin – because we’re used to the chaos.

So when we start taking a risk & saying no to our old nature, these feelings will come up & we need to make sure we have a support system in place to deal with them. I heard someone who struggled with same-sex attraction share in his testimony that he would go to his counseling appointments, feel all these overwhelming feelings, and on the way home, he’d hook up with someone. Finally, he contacted a friend and said, “Look, I just need someone to hang out with me for a couple hours after my appointment.” We need to learn appropriate self-care.

Next week we’ll find out the freedom step that makes it easier to say no to the old nature.

Freedom Fridays: Act Like a Free Person, Part 1

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What have we covered so far in Freedom Fridays?

Intro: What is Freedom? Part 1 & Part 2

1. Spend Time with the Freedom Giver: Part 1 & Part 2

2. Spend Time with Freedom Seekers

PSA: I Am Not a Superhero

And today: Act Like a Free Person

It may seem pretty basic, but part of learning to walk in freedom is choosing to act like a free person.

We’ve already talked about freedom being a one-time gift and a process. 2 Peter 1:3 says that “His (Jesus) divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.” Everything we need – and not just for life, but also for godliness.

Galatians 5:24 says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh (or sinful nature) with its passions and desires. It doesn’t say “are in the process of crucifying the flesh” or “will someday master crucifying the flesh”, but it says it has already been crucified!

Lest you think this is a typo of some sort or a copying error, remember Galatians 5:1: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Jesus Himself said in John 8:36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Galatians 5:13 says that the reason God called us was to be free, not so that we would struggle through life, just barely holding on till heaven.

Romans 6:6 says “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Verse 17 says we used to be slaves to sin, and verse 18 goes on to say that “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

So now that I’ve bombarded you with Scriptures stating that we are now free and no longer slaves in our sinful desires, you may either be feeling 1) empowered or more likely 2) defeated and discouraged. Either way, please keep reading! There is a way out of the cycle of sin.

If this is really true, if I’m really a free person, why do I continue to act as if I am enslaved to sin?

Shouldn’t it be easier, when we are faced with temptation, to just say no and walk away? Why did Paul even talk about, in Romans 7 directly after writing all these verses about not being a slave to sin, his struggle with doing what he didn’t want to do?

I remember a former pastor of mine sharing a story about elephants. I used to think it was about chickens, so if you heard me speak, this is the story I used to share about chickens. But my husband said it was actually about elephants and now it makes a lot more sense!

So, back to the story. In the circus, a common way to train elephants is to tie them with strong ropes to a sturdy pole. The elephants are tied to the pole when they are very young and quite small. Naturally, they initially fight being tied to the pole, but eventually resign themselves to the fact that they cannot get free.

As the elephant grows, the pole and rope stay the same size. Though the animal has everything in him that he needs to break free, he stills acts as if he is in bondage to this pole & rope. The elephant is so used to being enslaved to the pole that he never takes the time to try and see if he could be free.

We as believers often act the same way. We are so used to responding to the desires of our flesh that we don’t realize we can make different choices. We can act like a free person.

Let me share another analogy. Imagine that a person who has walked with a limp his whole life finds out there is a procedure available to correct that limp. He has the surgery, but he is so used to walking with a limp that he needs to undergo physical therapy to relearn how to walk.

Therefore, we as believers should not be surprised when we fall into old habits and patterns. That’s why I call it “learning to walk in freedom”. We need to proactively make choices to act like a free person.

And with that, stay tuned for the conclusion of this next week 🙂

Freedom Fridays: Spend Time with Freedom Seekers

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So far in this Freedom Friday series “Learning to Walk in Freedom”, we’ve talked about:
What is Freedom, part 1 & part 2
Spending Time with the Freedom Giver, part 1 & part 2

Today, we’re going to talk about the importance of spending time with other freedom seekers.

Hebrews 10 says “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

This is the often-quoted verse that many Christians use to say we are required to go to church. And they have a point – we can’t encourage other Christians and spur each other on if we never see each other. But why? Why does God want us to spend time around other believers?

Jesus spent a lot of time telling the disciples how to treat each other and what they could learn from each other, as did the authors of the epistles. There are at least 46 examples of what I refer to as “one another” and “each other” statements in the New Testament, the most common being that we love one another. The Bible repeats over and over that believers must not only love one another, but admonish, submit to, instruct, encourage, offer hospitality to each other. And how do we learn how to do this? In the company of other believers!

But that’s not the only reason the Bible tells us to continue meeting together. Specifically, learning to heal, but also to walk out our freedom, always happens in the context of community. This isn’t something we can learn alone. I think one of the biggest lies the enemy tries to convince us of is that all I need to heal is me & God: no one else. That’s simply not true and frankly, it’s not Biblical. In James 5:16, it says “confess your sins to one another (notice it doesn’t say “To God alone”), and pray for one another so that you may be healed.” It’s talking about believers. There is something about confessing our sins that continues to put the secrecy of sin to death, silences the lies we’re believing about ourselves and about our sin, and ultimately brings healing into our lives.

It’s completely inaccurate to think that the Christian walk is something we can live out in our prayer closets. And, again, not Biblical.

You may be reading this blog not for your own struggle, but because of a loved one who is struggling with a life-controlling issue. This point is just as important to you.

In John 11, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and Lazarus emerged from the tomb, Jesus told those who were there to “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Who was at the tomb? Mary, Martha and a crowd of Jews.

Was it easy for those people to even consider unwrapping Lazarus? Jews were forbidden to touch a dead person, but Jesus saw something quite different.

He saw through the grave clothes. 

Jesus saw someone who once was dead, but was now alive. He saw a new creation, and He didn’t ask that others be involved in the healing process. He didn’t say, “would you mind taking off his grave clothes?”  He commanded that they be involved. It wasn’t something Lazarus could have done himself. He was still all bound up. So we need to allow other believers to be involved in the healing process. It’s not only Biblical, but God commands it.

Sometimes we try to buck up, be strong, & get through things on our own, but that’s not what God requires of us. Instead, God calls us to be utilize His strength, not our own.  In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about this very concept when God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul says that because of this, he will boast (or confess) “all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  You cannot avoid this concept in the Bible; you will run into it again & again.

So we need other believers – to learn about God, to learn how to love and to bring freedom and healing in our lives. And not just recovery-oriented groups. At the ministry I direct, we have a strong suggestion that, in addition to regular church involvement, people also be involved in a church small group and not another recovery group. We have found that another invaluable component to the healing process. Recovery-oriented groups are not necessarily an accurate representation of what it looks like to build relationships with those outside of recovery-oriented ministries.

Spend time with other freedom seekers. Remember the transparency of Jesus, that there was a level of transparency He reserved only for certain people in His life. Not everyone needs to know all our business, but a few people need to know most of it. Find people who are not afraid to be weak, who talk about sin and struggle in an honest and redemptive way.

I’ve actually written a whole article on how to build healthy relationships. There’s definitely a lot more to be said on this topic, so feel free to read it 🙂

Next week? Act like a free person.

Freedom Fridays: Spend Time with the Freedom Giver, Part 2

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As I shared at the end of last week’s post, we’ve got to take the time to listen to & learn about God’s heart. As believers, we have been adopted into God’s family as His children; no concern or desire is too small for God. This has struck on an even deeper level since I had my sons.

Though it can be unbelievably challenging, especially in the early days, there is no joy like having a child. It has really helped me to understand God’s heart for His children in a whole new way. I get so excited about every little thing my kids do. “Oh, my goodness! He stuck out his tongue! Wasn’t that amazing?” “Wow! He’s getting teeth!” “He smiled at me and grabbed my hair!” It’s amazing to think God rejoices over every little discovery and victory in our lives.

I also am amazed at how much I love my kids. So much love for someone who comes into this world, relatively helpless. As infants, babies don’t give us any particularly compelling reason to love them. Yes after my first son was born, I caught myself thinking, “Wow, is this how much my parents love me?” He didn’t do anything to earn or deserve my love, except that he’s my child.

So often we try to earn God’s love by our actions. Or we worry that we’ve lost God’s love when we struggle with sin, doubt, or unbelief. But God simply loves us because we’re His creations, His children. And He loves me (and you!) far more than I could ever love my son. THAT is unfathomable.

We not only to read His Word to learn about Him, but also pray & practice spiritual disciplines. I don’t really have time to go into this topic in depth, but I’ll say a few things.

One of the most important disciplines that can help us get to know God, besides Scripture-reading & prayer is silence & solitude. Ps. 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God”. The Hebrew word for “know” there means “to experience.” If we become still, we can create the space we need to really know God. There are so many things in this world that cry out for our attention, and it can become increasingly difficult to quiet them. We need to still the noise and the clamor and the chatter of our lives and just wait.

We know that even Jesus has short & long periods of silence, solitude, prayer & fasting. You can find little pockets of solitude in your day. Early in the morning when you first wake up. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Since having a baby, sometimes I just sit quietly and take deep breaths as I watch him play. Besides those little pieces, we need to create bigger spaces where we just sit in silence and allow God to work in our lives. We may not hear anything specifically. Actually, we can frustrate ourselves if we try to heard to hear, but our simple prayer can be that God would work into our hearts the knowledge of who He is and who we are in Him.

We don’t have any trouble meditating on things we are passionate about it. If you’re a big Harry Potter fan, did you have to remind yourself that a new movie just came out? Did you have to write yourself a reminder to see it, or put it on your to-do list? No, of course not! In fact, the thought of seeing it was likely consuming much of your thoughts in the days leading up.

Are we that passionate about God and knowing Him deeply? Are we like the church in Ephesus, who was serving God with all their hearts, but had lost a passion and a true love for the reason they were serving? Have we forgotten to take the time to rest in God’s presence, to not only learn to trust Him, but also to allow Him to know us deeply?

You will get to a point in your Christian walk, if you’re not there already, where your motivation for spending time with God is simply because you need it, because you notice the difference in your life when you don’t make the time to spend with Him, praying and reading His Word. Until you reach that point, it’s OK for your motivation to be obedience. Psalm 119:45 says “I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” Knowing God’s Word and His principles brings freedom. “Quiet times” or “devotionals” don’t have to look like sitting in a chair & reading the Bible. It could mean taking a prayer hike and listening to the Bible on your iPod. It could mean blasting worship tunes & dancing in your living room. It could mean going to a nursing home & doing a Bible study with some of the residents. Feel free to be creative. Gary Thomas’ book, Sacred Pathways, has some great suggestions.

Next week we will talk about the next step in learning to walk in freedom: spending time with freedom seekers.

Freedom Fridays: Spend Time with the Freedom Giver, Part 1

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The past couple of weeks, I’ve talked about what is freedom, and why I love to talk about it 🙂 This week, we’re going to start to dive into the practical side of learning to walk in freedom.

Spend time with the Freedom Giver.

Before you check out mentally, let me be very clear in saying this is not a post that will say: “If you spent more time with God, you wouldn’t be facing the issues you are.” That’s hogwash. I know LOTS of people dealing with life-controlling issues, particularly those of a sexual nature, have likely been told ad nauseum to pray and read the Bible more. I’ll be the first to say that yes, it’s an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the whole puzzle. In the coming weeks, I will also share that we need to spend time with believers, we need to correctly understand grace, and some other practical tips. But the reason I encourage you to first spend time with the freedom giver is strategic.

I minister primarily to Christians dealing with unwanted same-sex attraction. This is broadening slowly as people approach me outside of the ministry I direct, but this is its primary focus. They come to the ministry because they can’t figure out how to deal with a particular problem/temptation.

Well, there are a few things about approaching your issues in this way that are not super helpful. First, we were never promised a life free of temptation. After all, Jesus was tempted, but did not sin. We’re pretty much promised temptation! It’s how we respond that we have more control over.

Second, when we spend our lives micro-managing a particular struggle, we quickly lose sight of the bigger picture. We are not simply a problem. Our identity is not defined by what we struggle with. Our identity is defined by our Creator. The often-quoted verses in 1 Corinthians 6 list a string of offenders that will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then the punchline: “That is what some of you were”. Our identity doesn’t lie in how our struggle with sin manifests itself anymore! We are new creations. Our identity now rests in God. And all our problems wouldn’t go away if this one problem went away 🙂 We’d just get a new set of problems because we haven’t dealt with the core issues of who we are, who God is, and what true freedom looks like.

Bob Hamp has said that freedom is not the absence of something; it’s the presence of someone. That someone is God. This is so important. This is why we need to spend time with the Freedom Giver! This is where we find out who we are and who He created us to be.

When we begin to follow Jesus Christ, often we talk about how we have a relationship with Christ. And that’s true. Whereas sin used keep us from truly knowing God and being able to be in relationship with Him, Romans 5:1 says that when we “have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” But let’s think about what it really means to be “in relationship” with God.

I use a lot of marriage analogies because I’m married 🙂 I talk to my husband every day. If a day goes by when I don’t get to sit down, look into eyes and talk with him face to face, I miss it. This time is increasingly difficult to find after having 2 kids 🙂 Even though I am in Roy’s presence quite frequently, it’s not the same if I don’t get to sit down and spend time with him, talking to him face to face. In Psalm 139:7-10, it says there is nowhere we can go and NOT be in God’s presence. But while we’re always in His presence, that doesn’t mean we’re actually spending time with Him. We can’t be in a relationship with someone we don’t know. And how do we learn about the Freedom Giver? One primary way is by spending time in His Word.

Being in a relationship with God is all about surrender. In order to completely surrender, we have to grow to trust Him. But we can’t trust someone we don’t know. And in order for us to truly grow in our knowledge of God, we not only need to read the Word; we need to do what it says. James 1: 22-25 says:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

We need to read the Word and do what it says. We’ve got to take the time to listen to & learn about God’s heart. The things He desires for His children -good things! God loves us more than we could fathom & is concerned about our everyday needs in a way that we could not even imagine. No concern or desire is too small for God.

More on this point next week 🙂

Freedom Fridays: What Is Freedom? Part 2

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Last week, I started a series called “Freedom Fridays”. Go read Part 1.

A very brief recap:

Why talk about freedom?

Freedom is my anthem – it’s my life’s theme. And the questions that come with the word “freedom” are questions I continually ponder.

I ended last week’s post, sharing that Scripture teaches that freedom is both a one-time gift and a process. The moment we come to Jesus Christ, He gives us freedom through the Holy Spirit, so that we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-18). But that freedom is something we need to learn to walk out.

The epistles often use the analogy of the Christian walk being like running a race or training like an athlete, and so I use this analogy: those who will one day become elite athletes have the gifts and natural talents they need to become elite athletes when they are born — but you would never put newborns at the starting line of the Boston marathon and expect to see them at the end. First, they need to learn to walk. Then they can jog. And then run. And the first run they go on will probably not set a world record. They must train to become elite athletes, even though the potential is there.

As believers in and followers of Jesus Christ, it’s the same for us. While in that moment when we first come to Christ we have everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) and we are free in Christ (John 8:36, Galatians 5:1), we still need to learn to walk out that freedom. We need to train ourselves to respond differently than in the past, both in our actions and in our thought lives.

So how do we learn to walk in the fullness of the freedom that is available to all of us?

Next time 🙂

Freedom Fridays: What is Freedom? Part 1

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I’m starting a series I’m going to call “Freedom Fridays”. I’m hoping to at least post here every Friday on Freedom Fridays and make that my focus for now.

Why talk about freedom?

Freedom is my anthem – it’s my life’s theme. And the questions that come with the word “freedom” are questions I continually ponder.

What is freedom? What does the Bible have to say about it? Is it attainable? If so, what does that look like?

I do not have all the answers. What I can say is that most of the time, I feel free! Plus we already know it’s not about how we feel; that does not dictate my reality. Do I still have struggles? Yes, but I don’t feel enslaved to anything.

This wasn’t always the case. I struggled for years with several life-controlling issues (an eating disorder, sexual brokenness, self-injury, to name a few). I also wrestled with what I thought “freedom” should look like in my life, and these are some of the things I’ve learned in the process, as well as things learned while ministering to others.

Galatians 5:1 says “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Jesus said He came to “proclaim freedom for the prisoners” (Luke 4:18). Let’s start by understanding our terms: What is Freedom? In the New Testament, there are several words that are translated as “freedom”, “liberty” or “release”. And they basically mean the “liberty to do or to omit things having no relationship to salvation”, “living as we should, not as we please” or also “release from bondage or imprisonment”.

I would go a step further to say true freedom is living in the fullness of all God created you to be. It’s learning to walk in His design, what He wanted you to be when He created you. This is the freedom that Jesus died for.

Why is this topic so important? Because I believe it’s one of the most misunderstood topics in the faith.

Most Christians seem to reside in one of 2 extremes. Some settle for a lot less than God has to offer. If asked, they would say they, of course, believe that God is the able to do the impossible (to deny this would be to say Jesus was lying), but they don’t really believe God wants to do anything extraordinary in their lives or in their struggles. They just hold on till heaven. Then there’s the other extreme where believers can have an unrealistic idea of what freedom looks like, and how long it should take. They expect some sort of “zap” experience wherein temptations & struggles disappear in a moment. They quickly forget that even Jesus, who was without sin, was tempted! The Bible says we are a new creation, so shouldn’t we just snap our fingers and all our troubles should vanish? Well, that’s not Biblical either.

Let me explain a little more what I see as the middle ground of these 2 beliefs. If this freedom for which Christ died was a simple process & easy to grasp, then the direction offered to believers in Romans-Jude would be unnecessary and you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog. I believe Scripture teaches that freedom is both a one-time gift and a process. The moment we come to Jesus Christ, He gives us freedom through the Holy Spirit, so that we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-18). But that freedom is something we need to learn to walk out.

So how do we learn to walk in true freedom? More on that next week 🙂