Today I sat in a teaching about freedom and living your life as a Christian is suppose to be one of freedom. The usual stuff was mentioned you know when they talk about the extremes and how it is bad for you. Stuff most of us have heard before.
Whether you are the type of person who spends all their energy following a prescribed set of rules to avoid formidable consequences or if you are the type who follows what ever impulse pops up with out consideration of any one but yourself, both extremes lead to a situation where you are focused on solely on you. Therefore, only can make your world right, perfect and acceptable.
But then I started to think…is that it? Is it just about avoiding the extremes? Then I thought maybe Jesus was not talking about freedom from something, what if he was talking about freedom to something?
What if freedom incorporates a "freedom to"? What if being in the middle allows us a place of freedom. Somewhere between discipline and self-indulgence, there has to be a place where you can just be free to love people with all your heart the way they need to experience your love. Or free to find one church completely unfulfilling, and another an amazing place of worship and fellowship, without being negative about the former. The picture I have a Jesus is that he was free to leave the temple and spend time with the dregs of society and he was free to ignore the scrutiny of others for doing so. I think so much of Christianity has been about choking the joy out of life and trying to call it freedom, but I think Christ may have seen it differently.
What do you think?
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