Three Months Free

After speaking into existence a perfect Creation, disobedience to God introduced sin into the world; sin in return, introduced complications into life - all of which have the potential to ruin the man who first disobeyed and his descendants. 
So, in fact, we could actually say that all which happens, we have done it to ourselves.

Three months ago I was taken into my second major surgery concerning cancer. When I woke up, I had a chest tube in my side, new incision wounds and a doctor or a nurse standing over me smiling - which was odd to see in my groggy state of mind. 
The reason he was smiling became very clear as he spoke - I was the highlight of the week, I was found to be cancer free. 
And it is this word, 'Free' which I have found to be the most interesting in recent weeks.

In my experience, most Americans do not realize what the meaning of the word 'free' actually is; instead, we have an idea that says, 'if we are truly free, then I can do whatever I choose without being judged, without consequence and without remorse.'

Whatever that is, it is NOT freedom.
This definition is not the definition of freedom but of one who is a slave to their own passion, their own desires; one who has never really mastered their soul because their soul has never found its Master.

In recent years I have been around the globe and seen many cultures and have been privileged to meet many good men and women from those places. 
Without being too specific, whether I was in Europe or in Southwest Asia - I found three things to be universally true among all those whom I have met:

#1 - Take away the stereotypes and the average person is very similar to myself regardless of what color they might be, what language they have spoken or from what race they originate.

#2 - Very few people in other countries understand the American concept of being 'free' politically, religiously, in speech or in the press. 
In most places, political parties are heavily controlled, speech must be guarded by the private citizen and the state religion should be followed if any are to be followed at all.
The converse is also true - Americans who have not experienced it cannot understand the society and culture of other places in the world.

#3 - Every person I have met who was a Christian, although the culture may be different, has understood what it means to have true freedom of the soul.

God has allowed me to kneel and pray with former enemies in the person of Russian brothers; He has allowed me to lead Filipinos to His grace. 
God has allowed me to baptize in the desert and to give altar calls in the Eiffel region of Europe. 
And in all these places and more, in all the people - when the Holy Spirit of God revealed Christ to them, there was a freedom which can only be experienced by surrender.

You see, in surrender to God's call to salvation or God's call on our lives, the individual finds a freedom that commands, a freedom that compels us to follow, a freedom that rejoices in servanthood.
It is a freedom that Adam sought, a freedom which Christ bought and a freedom which all desire from our birth in this world.

In God's economy of the world, things seem twisted and backwards to us because our nature has been corrupted. God's Mastery of our soul brings liberation and our servanthood to His will brings freedom in our lives. 
In Him, we are no longer slaves to the world, slaves to passion, slaves to desires; no, we become free in our surrender. Surrender to God brings freedom and in His freedom, we and all things we give to Him become eternally secure.

Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful, and rightly so. The twelfth chapter of Genesis in the Bible begins his story, the crux of which is his faith. 
Like Abraham, we stumble in life and we will make misguided decisions; but that does not mean we have fallen from grace, it only means we have made a mistake.
And like Abraham, we too must learn of God's security in our surrender to freedom.

Scripture: Gen 12:1 
 Now the LORD said to Abram, 
"Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;

And Abraham went. 
Abraham surrendered himself to the will of God by faith and traveled to the 'Promised Land;' yet, he did not know where he was going when the journey began. 
The same is true for our lives - we do not know where God will take us when our journey begins. Yet, in confidence we can trust Him knowing our surrender will take us to a great many places in life.

In the modern era of the Church, we have many substitutes for simple faith. This could be our greatest error for there is no substitute for faith. 
Anytime we substitute something for faith, we also substitute something else for God and enshrine it on the thrones or our hearts.
Deep, long valleys, tragedy at times, soul poverty and the forsaking/surrendering of all things - this is what builds our knowledge of God and grows our faith in Him.
It is here that we begin to understand the freedom of being a child of God.

Years after Abraham answered the call of God to leave his homeland, years after he was promised to have descendants as numerous as the stars, years after he was told in him all the world would be blessed; God asked for the most prized possession of Abraham - his own son, Isaac.
Isaac was the delight of Abraham's heart as my son is in my life; Isaac was the delight of the heart, not the idol of his heart.
God instructed Abraham to kill Isaac as a sacrifice. 
This instruction was painful, but Abraham was going to go through with it.

God stopped Abraham and provided a substitute for the sacrifice which gives us a beautiful image of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. But the point of the passage is the fact that God's rule in Abraham's heart was unchallenged.
And in our lives, God is to have no rival.

In Him, all things are secure - Our trust, our faith, our gifts, even and especially our own children. These things are on loan to us but in our surrender to God and our giving to Him all that we have and all that we are, these things are eternally secure.

These truths - surrender in life brings freedom; surrender to God brings security; these seem odd because it is the opposite of the world system in which we live. But remember, the world system has been corrupted.
So to rightly see this system as God would have us to see it - it must be by faith.

These truths cannot be learned by rote as you would a popular song; they must be learned by life experiences given to us at the foot of the Cross and by trusting the hand of God in faith. 

The greatest of these truths is the truth of salvation given by God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot promise you material wealth, physical health or warm fuzzies the rest of your life. 
But if you trust Him by faith, I can promise you on the authority of His Word, your surrender will release the greatest freedom your life will ever know.

Until next time, go win one for the good guys.