Freedom in Christ.....

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

Freedom, it is what all desire and many have died to obtain and protect.  It is why revolutions are initiated and why wars are fought.  But what does freedom mean for the Christian?  The bible tells us that whom the Son sets free is free indeed.  But free from what?  To be free from something suggests that prior to being freed one was in bondage.  For the Christian, the battle for freedom is won in the mind - not by might and not by power. Paul, while imprisoned - locked up and behind bars, was freer than his jailers because He knew and applied the truth of the Gospel and that is what set Him free.  Jesus Himself, bound and nailed to the cross, facing certain death, was freer than those who placed Him there because He was in fact the epitome and personification of freedom.  Freedom is to be free from anything that binds us, holds us captive or enslaves us - preventing us from doing the will of the Father as He commands.  It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are made free from sin.  When we choose to believe in Him and the completeness and fullness of His sufficiency, we are free.  It is amazing the freedom that is available to us, yet we oftentimes choose to remain enslaved.  Christ has provided freedom, but to take advantage of that freedom and really live in it we must choose to do so.  

I believe in Jesus Christ and I trust and depend on Him, however, there are times and situations when I would have liked to believe that I was trusting Him, but in actuality I was not.  When my mother passed away, it was a difficult and trying time - not solely due to her passing- but more so because of the lack of relationship between us. Most people will never understand that - after all, there is nothing more precious than a relationship between a mother and her child. This was not the case in my situation.  There was a great deal of hurt in my heart and I could not seem to let go of it (in actuality I chose not to let go of it).  When I left home to attend college, I never looked back. I returned home very infrequently.  I thought by moving away I would be free from that hurt and pain. I had a very loving and blessed upbringing, however, I was missing and longing for a close mother/daughter relationship.  Relationally, my father became both mother and father to me.  He was a living, breathing example of the love of Jesus.  Seeing his love for Christ in action is what inspired my pursuit of Christ. Even with this great foundation in Christ I was still in bondage when it came to relating to my mother.   Instead of asking God to remove that hurt (as I had done as it related to other areas of my life) I embraced that hurt and allowed it to drive an even further wedge between us.  I stayed away because it was easier to seemingly remove myself from the source of the hurt than to deal with it. Physically leaving home did not free me from the bondage of that hurt. There were a myriad of different issues surrounding my mother’s care, the house, the estate.  It became overwhelming and I did not handle any of it well.  I sit here now, looking back on that time, wondering how I can profess Christ and the liberty that He provides, and have been so bound.  I acted as if He did not own a cattle on a thousand hills; I acted as if He was not a deliverer; I acted on my own power, taking the lead instead of following Him.  At the end of it all I was a failed witness for Him.  Freedom was available to me because He died to set me free.  But I was living an enslaved existence in this situation because I did not choose to walk in that freedom.  The freedom needed to occur in my heart and mind by asking God to break those chains of slavery.  Freedom was not going to be obtained by moving away. Changing location is just geography - where I went, my heart and mind went also - and my heart and mind were unchanged.  I did not stand firm and I allowed myself to be burdened by a yolk of slavery.  

Freedom comes from applying His word to every situation.  It comes from trusting and believing that His way is the only way.  Everything else is bondage. Trusting in your own strength is bondage.  Trusting in your own mind and heart is bondage.  Look at what was in my heart.  I trusted it, and ultimately failed.  I have spoken with so many people who are searching for freedom and the peace that it brings  -but they are searching within themselves, void of Jesus; and unfortunately, they will never find it. Let us pray for one another that we stand firm (in the Word of God) and do not allow ourselves to become burdened again by a yolk of slavery.

Be blessed.....

Where He leads you, follow....

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11

As I get older and my children start to leave the nest, I find myself in a deeply reflective mode.  I have been looking back at my life, analyzing how I have spent the time God has blessed me with thus far.  I can honestly say that I have spent the last 18 years or so on the grind.  Always rushing.  Rushing to get to work, rushing to get to the grocery store before work, rushing to get the girls to school on time in the morning after working until 2am the night before.  Even when working in the ministry it was always a grind.  Rushing to meet deadlines, contending with the administration to fund the ministry, rushing to endless meetings to discuss the same issues over and over again.  It all became such a chore, to the point of displeasure.  I spent more time meeting and less time praying.  Somehow, in all of the rushing and running, I lost myself and quite frankly, lost my way.  My devotion time with God began to suffer.  I was spending less time studying the Word and even less time in serious prayer.  I prayed, but did not spend that quality time in the presence of the Lord seeking His will for me and asking Him to change anything in me that was not pleasing to Him.  My sincere pursuit of God and His will for me waned, and it became evident in my attitude and the decisions I made.  

I have spent some time on the threshing floor, on the anvil, allowing God to make and mold me.  The process of God winnowing away the things that are not like Him is as amazing thing to witness and experience.  I am still in a redevelopment stage and God has showed me His grace and mercy through it all.  He has control and I am blessed to just follow.  While in this mode God has placed in my life several people for me to minister to on a continual basis.  It is amazing to me the number of people whom I have witnessed to and then had the privilege of continuing to discuss the Word.  They are open and desire to know the Lord more intimately, and to learn His precepts.  It is a beautiful thing to behold.  This burden of discipling people in the faith is an awesome task, one  that quite frankly, I am not worthy of.  But no one but God could have placed these people in my life, and so I am praying daily for the Holy Spirit to give me the words to say as well as the way in which to present it.    

There has long been a longing in my heart and spirit to minister to people.  I always thought that - that primarily took place within the confines of a church.  I have visions of a church where the true spirit of the Lord dwells.  Where people would come in and be saved, transformed, healed and delivered.  A place where we would bring folk to Christ, through our example, deeds, prayer and teaching of the Word.  It has literally broken my heart to see the legalism which Jesus spoke out against so vehemently, set up residence in the church.  To see the havoc and broken relationship that legalism leaves in its wake is devastating.  It has restored such joy and hope in my heart to be able to present Jesus in all of his beauty, with His offering of joy, love, forgiveness and hope to those who are broken and lost, without having to battle the constant living examples of contradiction.    In spite of all of that, to see the process of people’s liberation in Christ, is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  

The great hymn “I Need Thee Every Hour” is one that has profoundly ministered to me lately - “I need Thee, Oh I need Thee. Every Hour I need Thee.  Oh, bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee”.  We must come to Him for everything.  We cannot operate in our own strength, nor can we depend on ourselves. He tells us in John 15:5 that “apart from Me you can do nothing”.  We must recognize that our hope is in Jesus Christ and that it is in Him that we live, move and have our being.  Decisions, thoughts, actions, separate from Him will ultimately fail us.  I recognize my need for Him every second of every minute of every hour of the day.  I seem to be at a crossroad and I am going to wait at that fork in the road until God reveals to me which way to go.  Waiting at that intersection is a difficult, yet humbling experience.  But I am going with Him all the way.  I encourage you to do the same.  Do not be discouraged by what you see others doing.  Do not be discouraged by those who are professed Christians that do not operate in truth.  We all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  That is why your ultimate example of who and what to be is Jesus Christ.  The only man that was without sin, the only one worthy to die as a perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world.  Continue to seek God, do not stop your pursuit of Him.  Slow down, make your time with God a priority above everything else. God has a plan for you.  Ask Him what His purpose is for you within His kingdom and then live in that purpose.  Seek Him - Wait on Him - and Trust Him.

Be blessed.......

The beauty of the Word of God...

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes--the Jew first and also the Gentile.     Romans 1:16

The Word of God is the power unto salvation.  It is essential.  It is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.  It instructs and corrects.  You can hear the Word and not really HEAR the Word.  Hear it and then pray for God to add understanding to it.  You must know the authentic Word of God so that you can recognize the counterfeit.  There is nothing more dangerous than an unauthentic Word stated as truth.  It equals bondage and death - and satan loves it.  Churches are filled with folk in bondage due to lack of the knowledge of the truth.  Lively praise and animated worship.  Folk up dancing and shouting - but no real change occurs.  It is tragic to me and there is a grieving deep in my heart over it.  My prayers to God are infiltrated with a travailing for the people of God.  People whom I love with all of my heart.  I can see Jesus standing at the door knocking, always on the outskirts, always kept in a peripheral view but never quite brought into full focus.  Good people who will believe just about anything that the preacher or someone whom they perceive to be more knowledgeable than them says. The fact of the matter is that Christ died once for ALL.  He is made manifest in each and everyone of us who believes in Him and He will reveal the truth of Himself to you no matter your stature or position in life.  God is not a respecter of person.  He loves us all equally.  Although we sin, although we fall, He is right there loving us.  He loves His people, even in our ignorance He loves us.  It is why He left Jonah with no shade and why Moses never entered the promised land.  People of God, arm yourselves with the Word of God.  Read it, meditate on it, seek the Lord for understanding of it and ask Him what assignment He has for you in the body of Christ for the building of His Kingdom.  He is faithful to reveal it.

I was raised in church and learned scripture from a very young age. I was introduced to Christ in church but I really met Him while on my knees in a quiet place far away from church.   My church had no tambourines, no drum sets and not a lot of clapping.  We sang hymns, anthems, cantatas and sacred music accompanied only by the piano and organ.  Every Sunday I sat in the presence of a great preacher who would get up every Sunday to preach the Gospel.  No hooping.  No hollering.  No theatrics.  He stood up, flat footed and sure - and proclaimed the Word of God.  He preached with great authority and assurance.  He provided factual historical and biblical context.  His sermons were instructional and educational, equipping the congregation with the necessary tools to go out into the world and be fishers of men.  His sermons were packed with instruction on holy living, and it is was there that I learned the nature of God. I learned who the person of Jesus Christ was and what His sacrifice on the cross meant for me personally as well as its impact on the world.  Of course, when I was younger, I did not fully understand all of these things (not that I fully understand them now), but it gave me a solid foundation.  It is that foundation, that Biblical truth that is my measuring stick for everything.  Even with this great foundational teaching, I still had to get to know God for myself.  I had to experience the manifestation of God in my life.  I had to get into His presence and ask Him to preach and speak to me.  It is my constant prayer for God to clean out everything that is not like Him in order that I might be of use to Him in spreading His Gospel.  God is ever teaching and correcting me and I am so thankful for that.  God will do the same for you!  If you feel as if you do not have a good foundation you can get one today.  God is waiting. Salvation is free and His Word is available to ALL.  The book of John is a great place to start.

I encourage all preachers, leaders, teachers of the Gospel to simply teach the word of God and the full sufficiency of Jesus Christ.  Preach Christ crucified.  Make equipping your congregants with the true word of God your top priority - it will win countless souls for Christ.  It will produce a mighty army of men and women of God who will move the Church of Christ and God will add to it daily.  Through the truth of His Gospel people will be set free - for whom the son sets free is free indeed.