Freedom TO and then Freedom FROM

This past Sunday morning, Michelle and I decided to stay home and have some time with our sons. It was a gorgeous morning, so we moved everyone out to one of our favorite places in the world, our screened-in back porch. The kids all groaned when they saw me bringing out the guitar. "Awww, Dad, c'mon. We're not singing!" I also brought out a stack of bibles for everyone and copies of chapter 48 of Larry Crabb's "66 Love Letters" in which he records his conversation with Father about each book of the bible, this one regarding Paul's letter to the Galatians. We read Galatians 5 together, then discussed Crabb's "journal entry." What he believed to have heard Father say to him about the letter rang very true with me.

He starts the conversation like this:

"God, one verse in Your next letter has frustrated me since I first heard it years ago in Sunday school. In Galatians 5:16, You tell me that if I 'live by the Spirit,' I won't gratify the desires of the sinful nature.' I've been fighting a win-lose battle with temptation ever since I tried not to look at Ricky Murphy's spelling test answers in fourth grade. I lost that battle and am losing lots of others, right up until now. If that verse hides the secret of how not to indulge sinful desires, I've not yet found it."

I wish I could relay the whole conversation. As one who has walked intimately and authentically with many brothers and sisters, apparently we all share these questions: "When are we going to experience the freedom Christ has paid for and given us? Why do I still find myself having days that seem dominated by the old flesh rather than reflective of my new Spirit?"

Father pointed Crabb to the words of Puritan pastor, John Owen who said,

"The Christian may be like a ship tossed in a storm. Nobody on board may be aware that the ship is making any headway at all. Yet it is sailing on at great speed. Great winds and storms help fruit-bearing trees. So also do corruptions and temptations help the fruitfulness of grace and holiness...corruptions and temptations develop the fruit of humility, self-abasement and mourning in a deeper search for the grace by which holiness grows strong. But only later will there be visible fruits of increased holiness."

Then Crabb heard Father speak these words to his heart:

"Gospel freedom means to neither indulge your whims nor keep My rules. Whim-indulgers and rule-keepers are slaves to the corruption within them that demands a kind of satisfaction My Son will not provide for you in this life. My Son has set you free to love, to believe I am good and that the good story I am telling is unfolding under His control. Faith in Me and hope for tomorrow frees you to love today. And loving with divine power releases a kind of joy into your soul that nothing else can bring."

And here is Crabb's response:

"God, I think I'm hearing You. Trying hard to follow all Your rules creates both pride and pressure that set the stage for addictively wanting the relief that addictions provide, an illusory but strangely satisfying relief that feels necessary and, therefore, justified. That's 'the great winds and storms' that Owen spoke of, the corruptions and temptations that are inevitable. You're not freeing me to keep on sinning so You can keep on forgiving, but you do want me to live in the freedom of knowing that You will keep on forgiving when I keep on sinning. I'm not free to do everything right - I can't. And I'm not free to do whatever makes me feel complete - that's wrong. But I am free to love. And exercising that freedom releases joy that provides power to resist the appeal of lesser but still strongly appealing satisfactions. Am I hearing You?"

(I keep thinking I will stop quoting and try to abbreviate things to sum it up, but IT'S JUST SO GOOD!) Here is Father's answer to Crabb:

"Yes! I'm delighted! My Spirit is the love that My Son and I have for each other and for the world. To live by My Spirit means to love others no matter how painfully you're hurting or how badly you fail. Focus more on loving others than resisting temptation. The fruits of holiness, the fruit of My Spirit, will become visible in increased power over compulsive sin and more freedom to love.

"Let the corruption within you become an occasion for humility and self-abasement that will release your desire to move toward others for their sakes. Make every effort not to sin less but to love more. Whatever sin continues not only will be forgiven but also will become an opportunity to celebrate the grace that supplies the power to love again, which in turn will supply the power to resist temptation as you realize that yielding to it gets in the way of what you most want to do, to love as I love. You are free not to do everything right and not do whatever pleases you in the moment. You are free to love."

I think the man's hearing from God. It's what Father's been trying to tell me for a while, I just know it. It feels like something crystallized for me there on the back porch with my family.

So here's that summary and what I'm taking away from this: Freedom from sin, our addictions and the flesh is not the point of Christ's mission and the work of the Spirit. It was never meant to be the focus. Christ has set us free to love as He loves "no matter how painfully (we) are hurting or how badly (we) fail." Increasing freedom from sin, our addictions and the flesh is a byproduct of the flow of love, and it's accompanying fulfillment, coming from the Spirit, through us, to others.

I'm feeling very free to love today. How sweet it is.

Oh, and by the way. We did sing a little Sunday with my son Jacob playing the guitar.

"Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that You're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me...."