1. Maintain and
promote liberty.
2. Maintain and
promote order.
3. Maintain and
promote goals that agree with God’s will.
These are not the only ways in scripture to experience and share
God’s presence, but they are the ones that are on my mind right now. Let’s look at each one.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty.”
By liberty, the word of God means complete freedom to be
what God made us to be and to do what God made us to do. God's first words to Adam were these, “From the trees in the garden you may freely
eat…”
Freely.
It is further written, “If you abide in my words, you are my
disciples indeed. You will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free.” And, “It
is for freedom that Christ has set you free.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke
of slavery.”
The Savior is the Liberator, but to experience Him as such,
we must submit to Him as Lord. This is
ironic. We choose freedom by renouncing
one master and choosing another. We
renounce Satan, or sin, or self centered living –in a word, ourselves--as our
own masters. In exchange, we submit to
God, our Creator and thus our rightful Owner and Master. In this, we become free to be His, and He is
free to be ours. I experienced something
like this exchange in college.
As a member of The Morehouse College Glee Club, I travelled
all over the U.S. during Spring Break. So
I’d “give up” my “freedom” during Spring Tour.
I was not free to be home from school (and do “what I wanted”) because I
was a “slave” to the Glee Club. But in
this “slavery,” I was free to see cities, states, and places I’d never seen
before, as well as free to make the most beautiful music I’ve ever
experienced.
This is the beauty of the
liberty God gives us. When we give up
doing what we want, we get to experience more than we could have ever done by
ourselves.
And this kind of liberty is not only from God, but is a
manifestation of the presence of God.
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