Liberty part 3
When you're free, you can do anything. But, like my grandpa always says, "You can do anything... as long as you're willing to pay the consequences." And, listen, that doesn't necessarily mean something bad. There are good consequences out there too. It all depends on how you use your freedom. It depends on understanding what you are free FROM, as well as what you are free TO. As simply as I can put it, we are free FROM sin. We are free TO love. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Where LOVE is, there is freedom. Sin is bondage. I wrote a whole book about being freed from the bondage of unbelief. Because when you don't believe right, you can't act right. What you do flows from what you believe. That's why behavior modification doesn't work. Not in the long term. Not really. But if you get your beliefs right... everything else will flow. And its not supposed to always be a struggle either. Jesus spoke about the river of living water FLOWING out of our bellies, or our hearts, or our innermost being. Who we really are on the inside coming out as we begin to know and believe that we are who God says we are. We are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. We are unconditionally loved by our heavenly Father. Unconditionally. No matter what. Because love is not about what you do. Its about who you are. God is love. As He is, so we are in this world. We are loved... and that means we are love! But if you don't know who you are, you'll always try to be someone you're not. That's not freedom. Trying to fit into a box, or conform to the world--what you think you're "supposed" to be--will never work. Its too much work, and you can't make it work. At the end of the day we are who we are. That's why its so frustrating so much of the time when we're trying to deny our true nature. Our "new" nature. The love nature. We've gotten so used to this idea of taking care of ourselves at all costs that we've become slaves to that selfish idea. Going from trying to get, get, get to being able to give what you've got is a big change. Its radical. A complete 180. From bondage to freedom. That's part of what the 10 Commandments and the wilderness wandering of the people of Israel was all about. God brought them out of some 400 years of slavery... and then had to teach them how to be free. And, come on, mistakes were made. They built a golden calf, etc. Because whn you CAN do anything, you'll probably end up trying some things. Again--its important to count the cost, because all actions have consequences. But maturity is a journey. Sometimes you need to go around the mountain a few times, so to speak, before you can find the right path. That's ok. Freedom, liberty, grace, mercy... love!--allows us to learn and grow. To figure out what it means to be free, and to use our freedom the best way possible. Not as an excuse for the flesh, but as an opportunity to love. Not trying to get anything... but as an opportunity to give what we've got. We CAN do anything. But we SHOULD only do what's in our hearts to do.