Freedom Indeed

When I see people engaging in a self-driven, self-fulfilling life style and when I look at my own life of apparent restraint and depravity, I sometimes wonder what the implications of the freedom offered through Christ truly entail. If the church is telling us not to do this and that, if I am bound by rules and regulations as a Christian, how can I claim to live a truly free life? Non-Christians see the seemingly restrained lifestyle of Christians around them and see a life of depravity and impotency to pleasure. They see the denial of one’s inborn desires and pleasures for the exchange of a drab ideal and confined way of living. While in some ways, Christ calls us to surrender the self and to deny our sinful desires, one must realize that Christianity is not the denial of one’s inborn desires and pleasures; Christ brings about the true fulfillment of who we really are and what we all long for. Christ did not come to take away. Instead, he came to fulfill and complete our previously deprived lives. I say embrace your God given desires and pleasures with that of what Christ offers. God made us to desire appreciation, self-worth, enjoyment, comfort, and fulfillment. I say come to the cross and be truly filled and satisfied to overflowing. True depravity comes when we fill those innate needs with things of this world, with things that will perish. Depravity occurs when we earn the appreciation of the entire world, but miss out on the loving and eternal appreciation of our heavenly Father. I certainly do not think we should be guilty for having the desire for someone to tell us we are attractive. We certainly should not be ashamed to acknowledge our desire for acceptance and adoration. We certainly should not be ashamed of our desire for applause and accolades. These things are part of the nature with which God has created us to have. True depravity occurs when we fulfill those things with what the world offers when God offers complete and utter fulfillment. Jesus finds you so beautiful and worthwhile that he hung on a shameful tree, was beaten, was spit on, and traversed the torturous route of hell. C.S. Lewis was right when he claimed humans to be too easily satisfied with mud-pies in the slums when a vacation waits at the beach. I say embrace your core desires and wants with the fulfillment of the abundant life offered through Christ. God does not want us to merely have fun; he wants us to have complete utter exuberance. God wants us to become who he truly created us to be.

I wonder why my body rages within me, my sinful nature versus my spiritual nature. After realizing the true fulfillment of Christ, why do I still seek to fulfill my desire with things of this world? I think that for humans, we find life easier to think of in the immediate. The immediate stands so much more clear and concrete than the future. We strive for what we see instead of striving for what is invisible. Both are there, but we long for physical food rather than spiritual food. The world offers fast-food, God offers time-intensive five-star cuisine. Our innate hunger for fulfillment causes us to settle for short-lived, unhealthy nourishment when God offers eternal nourishment. In the midst of temptation, one truth I hold on to is that God offers pleasures far greater than the immediate gratification of the world. I do not deny the pleasure of sin, but I try to remember the greatest pleasures that God offers. Would I trade God’s best for immediate placation and pay the consequences later? Or shall I store up treasures immeasurable in heaven? If you think about it, sin is getting the payout now then paying the consequences later, while on the other hand, God lets us wait for a time, and then pays out later. I use the term wait because the gifts that God gives are not earned, they are merely received or exchanged. They are either received with the utmost heart of thanksgiving and sincerity or they are exchanged for temporary treasure. That being said, I confess that I trade alabaster jars for broken clay pots all the time. Life is God’s training ground, his refining kiln. He changes me day by day to become more in his likeness. That is one of the precious gifts God graciously gives: life transformation. He transforms my old, decaying shell into that of a living child of God. He burns always the old self and brings to life the new.

The refreshing freedom of Christ fills our lungs after a lifetime of drowning in our depravity. We are no long bound to the law of sin but that of faith. I think that true freedom happens when someone decides to disregard immediate pleasure and breaks free from the bondage of humanistic hedonism. We are no long bound by our animalistic instincts to fill our bellies, to dominate the world, or to become indulgent in our sexual impulses. We are no long bound to the culture and lies of this world. Sexual revolution and freedom happens when someone says I will not give my body but to my wife. Revolution happens when someone says I will not settle for wine but of the new wine of God’s covenant and the living water of Jesus Christ. Jesus proclaims freedom to the ways of this world.

For the Christian, they are given the option to sin or to follow God. For the non-Christian, who does not yet know the way of life, every decision is a non-decision for sin. Freedom comes from choice. Since we are not bound to sin, when the Christian sins, their new life is not removed. I truly believe sin will never cause one to lose their Christianity because they live by the law of faith and not of sin. What brings someone to a renewed life is faith. Life is a gift from God that he will not give and then take back. However, as Paul says, we shall not sin more so that God’s grace abounds. For even though we no long live by the law of sin, we still live by one of faith. Life is a choice to be made and a relationship to be pursued. Life is a transformation of the will and of our pleasure. Eventually, we realize that only at the foot of the cross can we find freedom from the shame of sin and fulfillment with the grace of God. When someone is born again, their spirit is literally born again into life. God begins to grow and transform their new life. Slowly, our will becomes that of what God has for us. Slowly, we become who God intended us to be. Have you ever wondered whether there was something more to this meaningless cycle of pain and hurt? There is. We truly do not belong to the current world we live in; Eden is somewhere out there and the garden is lush and plentiful. The fountain of youth, the unified theory of everything exists. They came to us in the form of God’s beloved son. No shame, no guilt, no emptiness. Freedom. Jesus.