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For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?
-Martin Luther
Beware: This entry is written for those who are serious about living lives in opposition to sin.
We can be sure that any freedom worth a dime is at odds with sin. It’s worth noting while we are talking about our freedom in Christ that some people upon hearing the message of freedom get it all backwards—they think freedom signals a licence to do whatever they wish, when that’s not the purpose of freedom whatsoever. Freedom, like many things, can used for good—and yet, God still gives us the freedom to take our freedom and be as bad as sin. Just as our hands can used to administer a healing touch to a leper, they can also be used to gouge out our brother’s eyes—freedom wouldn’t be freedom if it couldn’t be used for evil.
The freedom we abuse quickly becomes a bondage to something we end up serving other than God—and we don’t become more free in this instance, but always less free. Those who have struggled with a besetting sin will know exactly what I am getting at here. Before we had been set free by Christ himself we lacked the power needed to walk in any lasting freedom to speak of. In other words, when we exercise our freedom for God’s good purposes in our lives we experience not less freedom—but we walk in more freedom. But how quickly that can change!
We were otherwise known as what Paul termed slaves to sin.
I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! (Romans 6:19-22, The Message Bible)
Now that we have been freed from the sin that once held us we better be prepared to face the battle of our lives.
Sin never gives into freedom without a fight.
Many Christians think stoicism is a good antidote to sensuality. It isn’t. It is hopelessly weak and ineffective. Willpower religion usually fails, and even when it succeeds, it gets glory for the will, not for God. It produces legalists, not lovers.
-John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World
Religion is powerless in offering to help us with our fallen condition and it can’t give us victory over sin. Religion merely offers to kill our longings by doing and saying all of the right things and that doesn’t kill the desire of a flea—besides it’s not the death of our desires God is after but rather the redemption of them. Let me repeat myself here, God’s not about putting to bed our desires—he gave us desires to begin with. It is the religious garbage we get caught up in that God is about extinguishing. Consider this: Religion hasn’t infused our spirits with an inch of strength , it hasn’t enlivened our souls with an ounce of life and it hasn’t added one single encouragement to our hope-thirsty hearts.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:21-25, The Message Bible)
If anyone ever tried religion, Paul surely did—and here he admits religion failed to do what Jesus finally did. For Paul—religion was nothing but an enemy of the glorious gospel of freedom in Jesus Christ.
I’m not so sure a flea has a prayer in regards to his desire to avoid being swatted to death—but one thing I do know is this: If we have any chance at all in terms of getting a hold of ourselves and seeing our desires under the lordship of Jesus it lies within the freedom only Jesus can infuse within our beings.
[We are] not grim pilgrims on a death march to personal holiness. ~My friend Nate Larkin
Following Jesus means a bit, but what it doesn’t include is doing away with desire—a bowl of chocolate ice cream with almonds and the thrill of a kiss in their proper place of course. Following Jesus is not some Christian version of sadomasochism. How easlily we become religious and shrink to label that which is to be holy—ordinary, bane, and even wrong.
Self-mortification is a strange form of religiosity that the bible never teaches although you can find it running rampant in much of what passes for godliness. The Devil’s counterfeit can be awful close to what God invented, but the differences are stark. Simply denying ourselves pleasures under any guise other than the purpose of God’s glory doesn’t serve to please God, it offends him. Trying to be religious and live up to some wigged out ideal mandated by man as the road to holiness only serves to suppress or stymie our desires, it doesn’t sanctify our efforts to be pious. God tells us to have some good and needed laughs, he ordered one day of rest for every seven, and relaxation is something he invented.
If you ask me, lust is merely the abuse of healthy God-given desires. The Devil’s counterfeit ever comes down to trying to surpress and kill altogether the desires we possess, God-given or not, innocent or lustful . It lies to us and tells us to forfiet our hungers for the appearance of godliness even if it is God gave who us the hungers (that is, what he intended we enjoy in a God-honoring fashion). It’s no wonder that since the inception of time as we know it we have seen the invention and rise of every religion under the sun of which tout self-mortification as the end all—it’s a predictable and easy path to what may assume is godliness. But the curbing of hunger isn’t godliness. Pretending as if we can kill our desires and somehow tame our capacity to sin by so doing is like declawing a wild tiger and thinking it will make him a bunny rabbit. You see, we can only suppress desire, a beast isn’t dead just because you cage him—he’ll just be a more relentless beast when he escapes.
Odd thing is, we’ll pick saying no to pleasure rather than submitting to the lordship of Jesus, and how quickly we deny that very lordship when it means sharing in his joy and partaking of his abundance. There are things we must deny ourselves (our own way to be specific) in following Jesus no doubt—he never would have told us to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him if it were not so. But there are times that as Jesus-followers we should be enjoying ourselves silly instead of denying ourselves to death.
A person without self-control is like a house with its doors and windows knocked out. (Proverbs 25:28, The Message Bible)
In the end, we shove our desires aside only to rebel with a vengeance later (and rebellion does come in all shapes and sizes). You can only starve desire so long before it becomes a ravenous 3 headed monster. It’s then, when we deny our healthy hungers instead of starving sinful appetites, when the enemy of our souls circles about us ready to feast—able to craftily seduce us and tempt us to go all out and indulge in something we have no business doing, and since we haven’t enjoyed a stinking thing in who knows how long, we fall for the bait—and fall flat on our face at that.
…for freedom is a delicate and subtle gift, easily perverted and often squandered.
-From the Introduction to Galatians, The Message Bible (Eugene Peterson)
We are afraid to give our children too much freedom because if we do, they’ll get crazy, go off the deep end, and lose all control. But how often do we stifle and quench our children’s creative spirit, zest, and energy all in the name of being orderly? When you think about it—we have done the same with our own lives and so it just makes sense we do it with others.
I am convinced that God is all about passionate followers hard after him who stumble from time to time versus having just a bunch of yes men all walking single file, never daring to step out and do something that might be taken the wrong way by his contemporaries—such thinking hinders us in stepping out into the freedom we have to love, share, laugh, cry, serve and hurt. Daring to live free does take courage.
I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. (Galatians 5:2-3, The Message Bible)
If Christ has given us freedom—shouldn’t we practice, cherish, promote and rejoice in that freedom rather than waste it?
Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.
-C.S. Lewis
Let’s face it, religious people look down their nose at the rest of us—as they should. They read their bibles in public more than we do, attend church services five times a week, pray on the street corner, stand on their soap boxes witnessing to sinners and school evildoers in the ways of holier living. They flat out serve God more, just ask them. These are the religious miserable people, and if we aren’t on our spiritual toes, we can be just like them.
It is easier to fall into the throes of religion than we bother to notice (I struggle with it quite regularly and can speak intelligently here). Being religious is easier to do than batting an eyelash. We seem to be born with a propensity for whatever makes us feel better about ourselves and religion in it’s most undiluted form does just that—better than anything I’m familiar with. Religion is all about elevating man. On the other hand, the gospel message goes light-years beyond that—the gospel redeems man and sets him free to worship God instead of himself.
Jesus warns,
’Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’ (Matthew 7:13-14, NIV)
There is no wider path than religion.
Religion’s path looks so good that it’s travelers are among the most convinced and die-hard folks you will meet, their intolerance for Jesus makes perfect sense when you consider the deception they have immersed themselves in. Meet a religious person and you will quickly find out that they are much more resistant to the Jesus we see in the Holy Scriptures than any common run-of-the-mill sinner is.
Father God—please spare us from being religious and make us more like your Son who delighted in you rather than in religion.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!…
-Lyrics by Francis Scott Key, The Star Spangled Banner
Over four million people annually visit the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Reports say that over 290,000 men and women who did battle to defend freedom are buried there. I would assume for a good many that make the trip to Arlington—they do so to visit the final resting place of a dear loved one or even a distant relative. I have driven by the massive cemetery that sits on the banks of the Potomac River while making a late night visit to the Pentagon with a friend on duty there—looking back now I only wish I would have taken the time to visit the cemetery myself.
When I see a soldier’s casket on television or hear about a brave soul who has been wounded serving in my country’s military I often stop to consider the blood that was shed in order to make it possible for me and hundreds of millions of others to enjoy the benefits of living in a free society. Have you ever wondered how much blood has been spilled so that you don’t have to be subject to the wraps of oppression but can instead live free?
So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! (Romans 6:15-18, The Message Bible)
The ring of true freedom is no more clearly heard than among those who have been truly set free.
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus isn’t going to leave us to ourselves and he isn’t going to let us go on living our lives the same old way we have been living all along. He wants to be our sufficiency and he will stop at nothing to help us see him as such. Jesus-followers are not self-sufficient—Jesus would merely be a side-bar if it were so. Jesus is the entire shooting match or he is nothing. Jesus takes a back-seat to no one and he is not fond of riding shotgun in the front passengers seat either.
In an era of self, a message of freedom that begins by dying to the self is foreign and odd. But even so, it is staggering to consider the hoards of folks who throw caution to the wind—and with it all restraint—and live exclusively for themselves just to crash again and again into a deeper and deeper pit of despair.
Jesus and his disciples were having one of their family times one afternoon as Jesus had just returned from one of his usual prayer walks—they were now engaging in a discussion about just who it was that he was:
Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: ‘Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.’ (Luke 9:23-27, The Message Bible)
It’s in living for and because of God that we begin to live free—only when we get out of the small little world of me can we celebrate any sort of true freedom. Selfishness is no substitute for the liberty found in following Jesus and the joy of following him in being free enough to share our lives with all of those within our reach.
Freedom is measured by death to self and aliveness to God and others.
Most of [us] think it’s very important that people think [we're] mature, pure and spiritual. I would suggest it’s far more important [we're] not. We’re so worried that our Christian witness will be hurt by our lack of obedience. That’s not true. Our witness will be hurt by a pretense of obedience. I don’t think I ever met a person who found Christ because a Christian was pure and righteous. More often it makes them think this thing is only for good people. As I understand it, we are only beggars who have found bread, pointing other beggars to the place where we found it. Disobedience hardly ever turns people from Christ. Dishonesty does.
-Steve Brown
We can’t liberate oursleves very well so what gives us the crazy notion that we can liberate another human being?
Faith in ourselves, the church, a patron saint, a creed, our prayers, or even an angel of heaven isn’t the freedom God gives—but rather it is the bondage of religion. Any other recipe for immediate rescue or road to heaven other than the One prescribed by God himself is destined to lead to death in every sense. Am I saying to my Catholic friends that you cannot find salvation in the sacraments, being Confirmed, giving up pizza for Lent or frequenting the confessional booth? Yes, I am. Am I suggesting to my reformed friends that we don’t place our hope in being dedicated as an infant, memorizing the Holy Scriptures or even being water baptized? Yes, I am.
These may be good, and even things our Lord Jesus commands—but to place our hope in our obedience is to negate our hope in the Cross. We must not forget the thief on the Cross who had not a minute to do anything but repent and believe. And Jesus wasn’t kidding around when he assured the scoundrel that he’d be in Paradise with him that very day.
You may ask—How do you know religion is worthless in saving anyone, Ken? I am aware that answering a question with a question is not proper or preferred in some circles but it’s appropriate to ask—Who has religion saved? Who has it delivered from the claws of sin and the faster than fast coming Judgement in which those who are not found in Christ will be thrown into the everlasting lake of fire?
Don’t put your life in the hands of experts
who know nothing of life, of salvation life.
Mere humans don’t have what it takes;
when they die, their projects die with them…
God frees prisoners—
he gives sight to the blind,
he lifts up the fallen… (Psalm 146:3-4, v8, The Message Bible)
Jesus is our only liberator.
Jesus was truly free. His freedom was rooted in his spiritual awareness that he was the Beloved Child of God. He knew in the depth of his being that he belonged to God before he was born, that he was sent into the world to proclaim God’s love, and that he would return to God after his mission was fulfilled. This knowledge gave him the freedom to speak and act without having to please the world and the power to respond to people’s pains with the healing love of God.
-Henri Nouwen
We follow Jesus after all—and he was as free a human being as any to ever walk the planet. I suppose that means we ought to be free ourselves to a certain degree if we follow him at all.
Jesus spoke often about the freedom that life in him entails:
17-21 Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke:
You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.
You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.
Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.
You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.
Joy comes with the morning. (Luke 6:17-21, The Message Bible)
Many just don’t get it. It doesn’t sound like Jesus isn’t describing a life of freedom—but he is! To the casual listener it sounds as if Jesus is talking more in terms of jail than he is in terms of freedom. Make no mistake—the free life isn’t one of comfort and ease. It’s not the life of fame and fortune. It’s never about who’s watching or not watching.
The free life is about much more than any of that. The free life Jesus lived was about pleasing his Father in heaven and so it is with us. It is one of the great paradoxes: When we live for ourselves we aren’t exercising our freedom—no—that would be sacrificing the freedom that God has so richly given us in Christ. A free person can skip down the side-walk smiling after just having lost it all and hum a song of delight in Jesus, because in God’s reality—she hasn’t lost a thing.
To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
-Augustine
I have a friend who chose to quit golfing all together some years ago now and he’s serious about it. He kept struggling to demonstrate self-control and in turn it was causing problems in his marraige. Finally he just decided the best thing for him to do was quit altogether and join golfaholics anynomous. Well, he didn’t do that, but he did quit. For me—I have decided to golf in moderation and it’s working out quite nicely (actually I need to get out and golf more—if anyone happens to be looking to treat a poor writer to a round this summer). Too much golf is only one of a plethora of issues I struggle with.
Moderation is the ideal. If moderation is not possible, abstinence is obviously the wisest course of action. Besides, abuse is disobedience and it is destructive, painful and costly. As one nutrionalist put it, Practice moderation, not total denial. Life is too short to do without a slice of pizza or a piece of cake once in a while. It may seem trite, but we deny ourselves simple pleasures God intended we enjoy, and sadly in the name of serving God. God never intended a life in which we day in and day out begrudgingly wade through our daily living walking on egg shells, ever afraid of savoring one iota of God’s wonderful creation. That’s one sad way to live. With hearts of gladness we can partake in what God not only has created, but that which he also invites us to enjoy.
I don’t claim to be the expert on abuse, addiction, recovery—or on the subject of moderation. I do, however, have some experience with it all. Maybe enough experience to be dangerous.
Jesus had some things to say on the subject—here’s one:
Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump. (Matthew 5:29-30, The Message Bible)
Experience is no replacement for the truth.
Oh yeah—and I’m still hoping my friend can get a handle on his golfing addiction and join me for a round of golf if he does.
To turn water into wine and what is common into what is holy, is indeed the glory of Christianity.
-Frederick W. Robertson
The first miracle of Jesus was turning water into wine, with a boatload of miracles to follow. The last place some of us picture Jesus at is a wedding hall serving wine. Apparently, he not only showed up but he might have dropped a few jaws and got a some sighs. What we forget so often is that God is not responsible for our abuses. Anything good or acceptable can be abused. Take food for instance, it would be foolish to argue that since gluttony is sin—and a problem for some people—all the rest of us shouldn’t eat at all.
Nonsense.
Lack of self-control is something I am aquainted with, so I am qualified to talk about this topic (for once I’m talking about something I know something about). I have self-control issues myself, and that’s being nice. Many of them too. And I know better than to participate in activities in which I am not prepared to demonstrate self-control. But I still cross those lines. There have been times in my life that I have golfed much too often, and at the expense of others. Golf is fine and dandy, but the overdose of anything causes problems.
Moderation is better than muscle,
self-control better than political power.
self-control better than political power.
(Proverbs 16:32, The Message Bible)
Seems to me the term moderation is non-existent in many of our vocabularies. Moderation is God’s way. Abuse is our way. So we settle for abstinence instead of practicing some self-control. Just because there are some of us who cannot handle this or that, doesn’t mean that the rest of us should have to lock ourselves up in a cave.
If you can’t go to the lake without lusting after every other woman in a bikini who isn’t your wife we will respect and appreciate your going instead to the movies—but please don’t ask or expect the rest of us to boycott the beach.
Some men, not content with [Christ] alone, are borne hither and thither from one hope to another; even if they concern themselves chiefly with him, they nevertheless stray from the right way in turning some part of their thinking in another direction. Yet such distrust cannot creep in where men have once for all truly known the abundance of his blessings.
-John Calvin
Years ago while youth pastoring (after my time away at bible college), I met a man who was an elder at the church I was serving at. Dr. Karl Bandlien was one of the wisest and most gentle men I have ever had the privilege of laboring with—let alone getting to know. Both of his daughters were in our youth group and were such a joy themselves. I think Karl was as consumed with the person of Jesus as much as anyone I have ever met. He didn’t say much, but what he did say counted—I suppose that may have had something to do with him being a doctor. Karl was fond of saying in a way only he could say it—He is doing it. Year in and year out, it was like a mantra for him. And a reminder for the rest of us. Four simple words really. But the truth stuck with me and I have thought often of those words.
Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! (Galatians 6:15, The Message Bible)
The life of freedom in Christ is always about what God is doing in our lives—unlike religion, which makes it endlessly about what we are begrudgingly sacrificing for him. The free life never entails living under God’s thumb, those who have truly entered into freedom in Christ don’t live out of an obligation but rather are compelled to freely follow Jesus out of a deep realization and a heart-felt appreciation for what Jesus has done and what he so freely continues to do that they cannot do for themselves—most specifically loving us with no pre-conditions or strings attached.
The free life is underlined by an unshakable awareness and trust in the God who is doing it.
Who loves not wine, women and song, remains a fool his whole life long.
-Martin Luther
When we value rules over relationships we run the risk of pushing those close to us as far away as Jupiter. We figure we are doing others a favor by mandating that they live within the restraints of what we deem responsible—and even holy. The problem is—we always go overboard. Instead of letting anyone out the side-door for some fresh air and recreation we bolt it shut—because—jimminy-crickets—they might just wander off somewhere they shouldn’t be you know.
We’ll keep them locked up in the house instead (this approach never fails to backfire by the way).
Instead of condoning sex—we figure it’s just safer (and easier I’d confer) to flat out condemn it entirely. It’s no wonder so many run off into the arms of illicit sex and uncommitted physical relationships—if you can even call it that. Kids that are raised to believe that sex is bad—wrong—dirty—sinful, or worst of all—not of God—are the same kids who will struggle mightily as adults. And don’t trust me, the statistics bear it out. If anything is of God here on earth—sex is! I hope that offends someone, because if it does, you need offending in the worst kind of way.
Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don’t skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!
(Ecclesiastes 9:7-9, The Message Bible)
May I remind you that God created sex—not Hugh Hefner.
When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us… He enters into our trouble and saves us.
-Eugene Peterson
Things aren’t always the way we are told they are. I was in church this past Sunday and my pastor was going on about the virtue of honesty. During his message he talked about the most well-known story in terms of honesty possibly in American history. It’s a story involving the patriot, war hero and president, George Washington. The story goes that young George was asked by his father about a tree that had been cut down at the family compound and responded: Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down this cherry tree.
Well, the story is a big fat lie—seems the most popular story about honesty is nothing more than a sham.
Religion isn’t shy about trying to convince us that in order to get control of our sin problem (we are saved you know—and sinning isn’t what we ought to be doing)—all we must do is somehow kill our desires. It’s no wonder so many of us consider following Jesus more like living in a torture chamber than we do a daily celebration.
21-22 If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time. (Galatians 3:21-22, The Message Bible)
Just as the law (I’ll add religion) was powerless to save us—so it is unable to give us a lick when it comes to living the Christian life. All the law can do is point us to Jesus—it can’t empower us to follow him in a million life-times. We can thank God for the law in that it painfully shows us our utter inadequacy, but we must not then turn around and attempt to live up to it’s standards in hopes that we ever will ever meet it’s demands. To do so is to undermine the faith we placed in Jesus when we gave up trying to earn God’s favor—as if we ever could have. Jesus bridged that chasm.
The big fat lie of religion is that is powerful enough to rescue us when all it does is hinder us, and in the end, it sucks the very life out of us when we put any stock in it. Jesus—the author of liberty—is the only One we need to put our stock in.
Let me give you a principle: When Satan is going to deceive a believer, he first makes it religious. There are a lot of Christians who think that because someone quotes Bible verses and looks religious, it’s of God. That’s not true. The truth is that the most spiritual person you know probably isn’t and the least spiritual person could be a servant of God… sent to get you to be a little less religious. I hate religion and God does too. Religion is our effort to please God and find him. The Christian faith is God’s effort to get to us and tell us that, because of his Son, he is already pleased. The only people who made Jesus angry were not the winebibbers, the prostitutes and sinners. He was angry at the religious folks…
-Steve Brown
A question I have heard over the years goes something along the lines of Did Jesus come to introduce a new religion? The answer isn’t as tough as we might think.
The old adage If it ain’t broke don’t fix it couldn’t be more appropriate when it comes to religion. There are a good number of folks who are indifferent to religion and others who vehemently hate it. And then there who those so unfortunate to be addicted to it’s lure and happy within it’s confines and spell—these are the very kinds of folks who hung Jesus on the Cross (seeing that Jesus wasn’t an advocate for their religion).
Religion isn’t only broken—it’s condemned and never will be fixed.
Whatever your affection or disdain for religion—the truth is, religion has been broken from it’s inception. We make a mistake of mass calculations by assuming that Jesus came to reform or modify—replace—add to—or even offer an alternative to religion. He did nothing of the sort.
Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! (Galatians 6:11-13, The Message Bible)
God sent us Jesus to introduce himself whereas religion gives us hell.
Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away.
-Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor
Pastor Mark Driscoll has laid out what I believe to be the best list I have run across in some time on the distinct differences between the Gospel and religion. Jesus delivered the very Gospel we preach today within the context of his earthly ministry and his fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures. It was the religion of the Pharisees (and any other man-devised system of connecting with the Almighty) that he came to abolish with his very life.
When you get down to brass tacks—Jesus is the Gospel and Jesus is about setting us free. And since I have been outlining what freedom is and what it isn’t (the Gospel shouts Freedom! after all)—I figured it would be fitting to share Driscoll’s list while we are taking the time to expose the fallacies of religion that are constantly at work to undermine the message of freedom.
Religion says, ‘If I obey God, God will love me.’ Gospel says, ‘Because God love me, I can obey.’
Religion has good people and bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.
Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.
Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.
Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.
Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get to God.
Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.
Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.
Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.
Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based on Jesus’ work.
Religion sees Jesus a the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.
Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.
As Driscoll so explicitly points out, the Gospel of freedom Jesus embodies and the religion he came to expose are at polar ends of the spectrum—they are at diabolical odds with each other.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified. (Galatians 5:23b-24, The Message Bible)
Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit and abolish women? The sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky?
-Martin Luther
I grew up in a church where you learned very quickly not say the wrong thing—or look, act, or think any other way than you were told. Looking back now, it was rather cultish. Boys had their own section of the beach, the church bus, and the hallway for that matter. Blue jeans were frowned upon and any music that had a beat reminiscent of rock music was of the devil. Movies that didn’t feature Jesus sporting some goofy blue gown and sash were discouraged. Red lip-stick was banned and colorful skirts above the ankles were devices of Satan. Basically, anything that might be fun was frowned upon. I can’t say I looked forward much to hanging out with such a sour group of sanctified saints. Even hanging out was evil—if I remember right.
My upbringing served me well in fostering a healthy skeptism and a grave mis-trust for religion—when I finally did bump into Jesus it was refreshing to say the least.
Because we are aware that freedom can be abused and maybe have seen it firsthand (or in my case—been there, done that) we’d rather err on the side of thinking—Freedom might just not be the best thing, there has to be some restraints to keep this ‘freedom thing’ in check. And then after a few of our own failings, we conclude—I think I’ll write some guidelines for myself. In turn,we put together some guidelines for our weaker-younger brothers making anything that might be an occasion for abuse off-limits and before you know it, we have a whole manual something along the lines of How to be a good-little Christian. It’s no wonder freedom never gets a snowballs chance to even make it’s debut.
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? (Galatians 5:13-15, The Message Bible)
A major difference between legalism and freedom is that one can be legislated and the other cannot.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
-William Shakespeare, King Lear (Edgar at III, iv)
A friend of mine was telling me tonight about her aunt who is in town visiting from California this week. Her aunt has a friend out there in the Golden State who knew a lady who was going about her business at her local high-end modern-day fruit stand—one of those organic shrines I’m guessing. The market has a penchant for these big over-sized bins of fresh cilantro. Not realizing the hidden danger that lurked in the piles of green, the lady went ahead and dug down to get her share only to draw her hand back up in surprise as she was pinched by something—so she thought. She suddenly felt queasy, excused herself, and went out to her vehicle. Her husband became concerned ten minutes later when she didn’t return and went out to check on her only to find her—dead. She had been bitten by an Arizona Black Rattlesnake without even knowing it.
It got the writer in me thinking, as is the case twenty-three hours a day. Religion is both respectable and poisonous. It’s venom can go undetected, is fast working and kills it’s victim quickly. And the strange thing is how much so religion is able to grab hold of our hearts without our even realizing it’s happening. What I find fascinating if not alarming is that we are all not only susceptible to it—we are prone to it.
We’re drawn to religion much like the waves are drawn to the shore. It is both naive and foolish to pretend we aren’t.
Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. (1 Peter 5:8, The Message Bible)
Being bitten by the terrible killer snake himself can happen to any one of us—it’s only a matter of time when we become lazy in remaining solely dependant upon the grace of Christ which is the sure and proven antidote in opposing the forces of religion upon our own hearts.
Elizabeth Browning was on to something when she said The devil’s most devilish when respectable. We just miss him all wrapped up in the cloak of religion—that’s all I am saying.
Do you know why most Christians don’t get any better or why you don’t get any better? It’s because you’re doing it wrong, dummy! You are obsessed with sin and your faith has become another ’system of laws’ whereby you feel guilty and try and try and try to do better. It doesn’t work, never has worked, and never will work…
-Steve Brown
If I had this freedom thing down pat I wouldn’t bother writing about it. But I want to breath it with every gasp of air I have left before they box me up and stick me in some stuffy cemetery.
A few days ago I returned from a weekend away to see my oldest daughter graduate from high school. It was exhilarating and frightening all in the same swoop. Maybe you can relate to my feelings—she’s my first-born and makes me one proud dad. Anyways, I woke up the other morning and headed into the bathroom after putting my morning coffee on just to be greeted by a big red spot on the tip of the end of my nose (and for those who haven’t seen me—I don’t have the smallest beak in the world). The thing was irritating and it hurt too. Figures Id’ get one—my dad gets the pesky buggers every once in a while and I make fun of him. I thought by the time you were so close to forty these little ego deflaters would be history for good—let alone a man in his mid-sixties. I suppose I have something to look forward to besides streets of gold.
Nobody likes zits, or least no one has told me any different. Zits are like sin if you ask me—although those of you lucky enough to never get a zit can’t say you never get a sin. Sadly, some times it seems like I hate zits more than I hate sin. I also got to thinking about the fact that I didn’t touch my big zit—not once, and it disappeared within a day (to my satisfaction). Sin is like that I have found, and although my sin nature hasn’t taken any extended vacations lately to my dissatisfaction—my sins do seem to have a way of being less of an issue when I don’t obsess about them but rather trust that God meant it when he said he forgives every last one of them.
13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:13-14, ESV)
I think the idea here is to starve the flesh—my sin nature has trouble surviving let alone prospering when I don’t feed it. Like my big zit, I have this thing for obsessing about things that are better left alone and I am slowly but surely learning that it helps to stop thinking about my sin and start focusing on the one who has delivered me from it’s penalty.
Temptation has a way dissipating when it isn’t messed around with.
And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies’ plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger.
-C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Deadly snakes don’t do much discriminating in terms of their victims and our enemy isn’t about to cut us a break just because we’re not much in the mood to run into him today.
Religion is sneaky. It’s covert and cunning. It doesn’t raise it’s ugly head and humbly announce Here I am. Religion is always saying things like hath God said—twisting, perverting, and eventually getting us to settle for something akin to a nasty artificial sweetner in the place of the real freedom that life in Jesus entails. It’s as old as sin and goes back to the very beginning with the first cave-man on record—Adam.
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: ‘Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?’
The Woman said to the serpent, ‘Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’
The serpent told the Woman, ‘You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.’ (Genesis 3:1-5, The Message Bible)
Truth is—we are afraid that our biggest fears will be realized in embracing freedom—so we reluctantly hang on to religion. Ditching the law and order (control and manipulation) that religion represents and the supposed protection that religion seems to offer is a very frightening proposition. In many ways we see religion as safe, when in fact in it’s rawest form religion is our enemy’s most seductive poison. It can look so good. After all—it’s sin that looks so bad. Drinking, killing, and cussing—these are no-brainers for us who are mature to identify. But we can’t see past the end of our own noses when it comes to envy, gossip, jealousy, hate, pride, or lust of every flavor—these look delectably tasty to the indiscriminate eye. And when we do see the offense to God in these minute lapses in judgement, we pass them off as if they were the smallest of small infractions or worse yet we just don’t see them at all.
The serpent’s fruit is always carefully packaged and presented, making it almost impossible for us to discern. It should come as no surprise that Satan carefully construes many of his most harmful lies in the form of harmless religion and in a light that fails to show any signs of being worm-ridden and rotten to the core—just like the first fruit he picked to begin with.
He won’t stop at anything to rob our freedom.
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