AUTHENTIC FREEDOM - by Brent Lokker


This past week, we celebrated 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

It begins: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.”

Though our forefathers stole the land we call America from our First Nations brothers and sisters who originally inhabited and cared for this land, it seems our founding fathers did have an internal compass that drew them back into the direction of the Father’s heart—that all of his children have equal value to him. What a beautiful truth to have founded our part of America’s history upon.

Unfortunately, many in our country believe their freedom is in doing whatever they want to do, much to the pain of others. That kind of ‘freedom’ actually imprisons us to the very thing we thought was our freedom. In contrast, Jesus lets us know that our freedom is actually in surrendering to the Spirit of God who is working all things for our good. It’s only in a life yielded to the Spirit within us that we begin to experience an ease and a joy in doing life with our Savior that no amount of ‘doing whatever we want’ could ever touch.

 I am beyond grateful for the privilege of living in a country where I have the freedom to express my love for Jesus openly, and at the same time, I want to live more and more in the freedom he promised which is not as much about my own rights as it is about following the ways of God’s Spirit in caring for ‘the least of these’ and upholding the cause of those who don’t have a voice in our society.

 This is a significant part of God’s justice and mercy (beautifully explained by Pastor Karena a week ago) that we get to partake in. This is a significant part of life in the Spirit. This is the freedom we were promised.

 

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