FREEDOM!!!
No doubt most of you reading this will remember a scene from the movie Braveheart…as William Wallace is being tortured in an effort to persuade him to deny his life’s passion. He believed that no matter what the cost…freedom meant everything. He believed that life without freedom was no life at all. His last word as the executioner was literally removing Wallace’s intestines was “FREEDOM!!!”. The next few scenes reveal a nation ready and willing to fight to the death for their freedom…which they win. But, this freedom came at a great cost!
The same is true for Christians today. Christ died for us that we may live a life of freedom. The question that seems to be buzzing in our body of believers is what exactly does a life of freedom look like? Most of us have seen what a life of bondage looks like. Not only bondage to sin, but also to legalism. All of the “don’ts” that are so obviously based out of tradition and not scripture…but was the price, Christ’s death, so meaningless as to pertain only to whether or not we can drink, or smoke or dance?
“Please God; tell me it was for far more!!!”
I am free to dance, I am free to drink whatever beverage I please, I am free to wear jeans to our weekly gathering of believers, I am free to worship God on a daily basis in any way I see fit…I am also free to sin no more, I am free to live in community, I am free to LOVE!
I am of the belief that that very thought…”I am FREE to LOVE!!!”…is worth the price paid. Even when we argue about what is and is not “o.k.” is to demean the price paid…I am free to love. That is so refreshing. I am now free to love…without Christ, I could not love.
I am free to love…to love others, to love myself…to love God!!!
