The Freedom of the New

Whether we like it or not God has planted in us the need for Him. It is primarily a response option. He is the initiator,  and we receive. We love because He first loved us. He has proven his faithfulness, established His trustworthiness and demonstrated His love. He has lavished us with His Spirit at our new birth. In an instant with an eternally originated flash we became something that hadn’t existed before: a new creation.

Usually when an event like this has occurred the new thing is an empty slate. However, at our first new breath we are fully equipped with all we need for life and godliness. He has fashioned us with the mind of Christ and galvanized our new identity with Holy Spirit. We are what Dr. Andrew Farley calls heaven ready. We are secure, perfected, complete, loveable, acceptable, and one with the Father. I/we, quite frankly, lack nothing. There is no numerical order that I need God to achieve or be placed in. It is impossible to be any closer to God because He dwells in us forever. Jesus said in John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, so that He may be with you forever and in verse 17 He says “He dwells with you and shall be in you. There are no unconfessed sins separating us from the love of God. Our sins are all forgiven. Past, present and future sins - all gone. There is no need for a daily death ceremony because we died with Christ. Therefore, I was resurrected with Him. I can’t chant I must become less so God can be more because we are one with Him. It’s impossible to become less of me while united with all of Him.

We are constantly putting pressure on God to show us His will. His will is that we believe Him. We are regularly twisting God’s arm with repetitious prayers and self-flagellating disciplines when all God wants is for us to trust Him. I think He might be saying I don’t need your endless begging or self-righteous fasting. Now if practicing disciplines as an act of worship is your motivation, then by all means, worship Him by those practices. But I don’t think He responds well to sad faces and emaciated bodies from a twenty-four hour fast.

I have been told (preached at) that it is my Christian duty to perform acts of service. This is only necessary if you are a Boy Scout, as you must do acts of service to achieve rank. But these well-meaning hucksters of self-achievement use the pulpit as an instrument of guilt and shame to accomplish their agendas of approval through serving God with other people’s sweat. I serve because I get to, not because I have to. And I think it’s very appropriate to serve quietly.

I only know of two churches that I’ve attended that haven’t bled their congregation through mandatory tithing. I’ve heard phrases like “give til it hurts” or “you can’t out give God.” Here’s a popular ask “God will get His portion one way or another. If you don’t give your ten percent, He’ll make your car break down, you’ll get a big hospital bill, or a meteor will fall on your house.” Ok not the meteor part. Once again, I’m astounded by the use of guilt, shame and manipulation from a pulpit. There is absolutely nothing in the in the new covenant demanding that we tithe. Paul does instruct us to be cheerful givers. I can do that. Once again not because I have to but because I get to. Besides all we have is God’s already. Now there are those of us who are in fulltime ministry and depend on the generosity of others. So, it’s my job to provide a worthwhile, Christ-focused service.

So, what does God need from me? What are His expectations for my behavior? What does He want me to do? How can I possibly begin to hear Him? We are often scolded for asking such rudimentary questions and then with a sweet (Christ-like) condescension we are lectured. On how God needs us to pursue Him, behave like Christ, to pray more, read the Bible more, confess more, repent more, be in church more and hear God through the instructions of His anointed ones. You just can’t expect God to work harder at this than you do. If you believe this, I have a slightly used sewage trap I would like to sell you. Doing more is the circular cage used to drain the life and energy out of a mindless hamster. With this formula you will follow in the tracks of countless Christian lemmings off the ledge into boundless distraction and false humility. Yes pray, read scripture, and go to church but none of these will make you any more righteous than what you right now are in Christ. We are not on a road to completeness. You are complete in Christ. We are not given more information to help us decide to love God. He is the source for love. He loves you and as your source you can love with His love. Your love is an emotion and falls way short of what God will provide through you. God’s love is not an emotion. His love defines Him. The Bible is not a self-help program to grow you out of your sins. It is one way God communicates that all your sin is forgiven and therefore gone. God is the eternally unmatched conversationalist. He is always present, always aware, forever interested and louder than your human ear can ignore. He speaks with a gentle kindness unique to each listener. The choice you get to make is to believe what He says about you no matter how good it is.

It is my position that a lot of well-meaning Bible teachers have taken verses out of context to teach and present the gospel. They twist or even distort scripture with the purpose of getting people saved. The goal justifies the means slant to salvation. One such misrepresentation of scripture is the use of Hebrews 6. It has been used to mislead us into thinking we can fall away from grace, nullify the finished work of Christ, or even lose our salvation. In Hebrews 6:4-6 we read:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, and who have fallen away; it is impossible, I say, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify the Son of God afresh to themselves and put Him to an open shame.

With this verse taken out of context one could make a case for the idea of it being possible for believers to lose their salvation. In context that is not at all what these verses are referencing. In context the writer of Hebrews is talking to Jews who had been exposed to the gospel of Jesus and seen the miraculous power of Holy Spirit and the powers of the age to come. And yet many of them rejected the good news of the gospel and wanted to continue in the dead works of the of the old covenant. Author Paul Ellis says it this way:

"Rejecting the finished work of the cross by pursuing dead works is like saying, 'Jesus, you need to die again. Once was not enough.' This is why the author of Hebrews insists that Jesus’ sacrifice was the once and final solution for sin.

In the same way many in today’s church consume a message that says the old and new covenants are compatible. That law and grace make up the entirety of the gospel. This false teaching results in stagnation and a lack of understanding in the power and freedom of God’s intimacy. The writer of Hebrews is exhorting his fellow Jews to return to the unencumbered message of Jesus and trust in His finished work for salvation. But some chose what they thought was familiar, safe, and felt normal.   These Jews could not say yes to a radical new way of being in relationship with Father even though they heard the truth of Jesus from the apostles many times in Jerusalem. They gave in to the pressure of dynamic interpreters and speakers of the Law.

Today we hear a similar message that God wants us to work out our salvation by quoting, out of context, Hebrews 6:11-12:

And we desire that each one of you show the same eagerness to the full assurance of hope to the end, that you be not slothful, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

The writer of Hebrews is saying nothing about reproducing the efforts of Paul, Barnabas or any of the apostles. He’s not admonishing them to work as hard as they have. He is saying I want you to be as excited and confident about the hope we have in Christ. He’s saying don’t be apathetic in how you relate to God, imitate my enthusiasm, my zeal, eagerness for freedom from the bondage of the law. I don’t think that the writer is talking to lazy people but to folks who are afraid, intimidated, confused and are trying to convince themselves that what they had before – The Law – was enough. It seems he is pleading with them if you don’t accept this truth there’s no hope in anything else. All the rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices are dead works and the promises of God are a gift, an inheritance not earned.

I sometimes find myself wringing my hands, breathing irregularly, pacing with hurried steps, worried that all this bad theology is ruining God’s Kingdom. I exclaim that there is not enough of me to make sure everyone is doing and saying the right stuff. There’s not enough time to fix humankind from their corrupt belief systems. I need more strength, more stamina, more fortitude, or it’s all going to collapse. I used to have thick brown hair and now it’s gray and thin and I yell come on God!? What’s happening!?  And I hear God say “I’ll tell you what is happening Freedom. Freedom to no longer be constrained by the bonds of religion, the freedom to choose or to reject, the freedom to love or to just be loved, and the freedom to grow or just stay where you are. You have freedom in all things:

All things are lawful to me, but not all things profit. All things are lawful to me but not all things build up. Let know one seek his own, but each one another’s. Eat whatever is sold in the market, asking no question for conscience’ sake; for the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness of it. - 1 Corinthians 10:23-26

Then I ask why is the world going to hell in a hand basket? I can imagine God saying “I don’t even know what that means. I made all of this world, everything in it, I sent My Son to die for it and it became redeemed. My plan is not broken, my timing is not off, and my purpose is complete.  And my final words to you on this subject is stop trying to fix that which is not broken. Continue to announce the freedom of the new covenant,  continue to announce the old covenant is fulfilled, and that life is in every breath of the wind.”

John 14:6: I am the way, the truth and the life no comes to the father but by me.

John 14:10b: The words I speak to you I so not speak of myself, but the Father who dwells in Me, He does the works.

All who read these words: Christ has made us free, stand in those words, live from their source, and never again be held with the yoke of bondage.