Let Freedom Ring!

 So Christ has truly set us free.  Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.  Galatians 5:1

It is time for the freedom, for which Christ died, to be part of the body of belief that we teach to those we lead and nurture.  I am reminded of my Romanian roommate’s stories of the years of release from communism after the revolution of the 1980s.  She said that the older people who had been accustomed to rules and dependence are not faring well in a free-market economy that requires initiative, personal commitment and hard work.  It was easier to be told what to do, to let someone else be creative and interactive with the system.  Now it requires personal responsibility. 

 How many Christians, too, would prefer rules, with others setting the standards and taking the responsibility for what they believe and how they behave?  I have been pondering and debating how a church, whose traditional format is to teach the rules of Christian behavior, might preach freedom and not have chaos, syncretism and sacrilege.  As my roommate would say, I would like to “help people to learn to walk in freedom.”  How much we have to change our view of religious practices when they are Spirit-based as opposed to rule-based! 

Jesus died for freedom’s sake.  Paul urges us to stay free (Galatians 5:1) and to pursue Spirit-led living instead of law-driven living (Galatians 5:16-25).  It might mean initiative, personal commitment and hard work, all required for relationship-building with any person, including our Lord.  And if it is true that “union with God” is our primary goal, would this not make complete sense.