Last time I wrote, I
realized that God was a Being who wanted us to love him with every ounce of our
being, and he wanted a true love–not feigned love under the guise of obedience,
good works, and worship. I am realizing as of late how desperately our God desires our Love above all. This is coming in the context of discovering how MUCH
freedom God has given us.
A lot of
non-believers, and even some believers (myself included a few years ago), take
major issue with the Christian church because of all of the rules, the “Cant’s”, the judgment, and the obligations, the religion. Whenever my non-believing friends cite these issues as
their reasons for not believing in the God of the universe, I find myself
cringing but still unable to explain how
I think the church has gotten it wrong. As of late I have been coming to understand why these things
have remained unsettled in my soul for so long.
In spending so much
time in the Old Testament these past few weeks, I found myself in the same
place as a lot of Christians: trying to figure out WHY there were so many rules
(we won’t even begin to talk about Leviticus!), but that topic should be the
subject for another time. However, also in the Old Testament, the prophet
Jeremiah says, “Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant…not like the covenant I made with their fathers…” (Jeremiah
31:31-2).
Meaning that when
Christ came, lived a perfect life, and then died for every single sin in
eternity, he shed the blood for the new covenant to come into place.
Thankfully, we no longer live under that old covenant. That verse says the new
covenant is NOT LIKE the old one. There are no exceptions. The new and the old
are not the same in any way. The old way is gone; the new has come.
So in the New
Testament we instead have verses like:
“It was for FREEDOM
that you were set free.” Galatians 5:1
If the old Covenant
is gone and we are supposed to be living in a new one unlike the old, why are
we still sitting here trying to follow rules? Why, as Christians, are we so
obsessed with telling people that everything
they do is WRONG. We put so many walls around our faith, making a list of
things that we are not allowed to do. We are against so much that we can barely explain what we are for or why
God Himself is against those things. Telling me everything I cannot do seems far from being set free
by Christ.
In trying to
reconcile these two disparate things–God’s word and the way we portray it–I
read this passage: “All things are lawful for me but not all things are
helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.”
1 Corinthians 6:12*
Wow. That is NOT what
my church taught me growing up.
ALL THINGS are
lawful?
That sounds more like freedom.
And then “not all
things are helpful” and “I will not be enslaved by anything” make the why we are against so much make sense.
Some things bring us closer to a LOVE relationship with our Father, while
others bring us about as far away from Him as possible. But those “things� are
different for every person.
But if God is so
obsessed with us choosing to love Him, then why is freedom such a big issue
too. Why is freedom so necessary? Why would Paul write that God sent his son to
die for freedom?.
…
How does this sound:
God wants us to be
free so that we choose Him.
In the absence of
freedom, love can be neither measured nor verified.**
If we believe God
desires us to follow rules, then we are going to do so simply because of a fear
of punishment, a fear of the judgment attached to the rule. But again,
obedience is not love.
So. God wants us to
love Him above all. But rules are not the way to that love. That’s why we have
a NEW covenant. We are not under the old.
In order to truly
know that it IS God we love, and God we desire, we absolutely have to be given
the freedom to NOT choose Him. We have to be given absolute freedom to walk
away from Him.
And He has given it
to us.
We are FREE to do
WHATEVER we want.
I am free from laws,
rules, regulations, judgments. I have been set free.
You are free too.
Non-believers, you
are FREE to continue to not believe. But don’t continue to hide under the guise
that belief in God means following rules and casting down judgment.
I am coming to
understand the heart of my wonderful maker right now as I dive into the
absolute freedom he has given me. I am learning that every moment, loving Him
is a choice.
*For those of you reading this verse and still wondering
just how radical that passage is. Well the context of this verse is Paul
writing about homosexuality. He begins it by saying that ALL things are lawful.
That is certainly not what we are preaching is it.
**This phrase and
even this new radical love for love and freedom has come from a sermon series
by Anthony Chapman at the Rock of York Church in England. If you’re interested,
download his free podcasts on itunes. This series was from last June and July
called: A New Covenant: the Truth about Freedom.
