"Freedom Bound" is the name of the men's recovery program at the Mission where I work. I have heard the director of the program speak again and again about how freedom is the goal of every aspect of the program. Why is that so clear for the men in the program and so muddy for me? Christ brings freedom, but I feel anything but free.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery," Galatians 5:1.
Here are a few of the following verses from The Message: "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.
"I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. "
Here I am waiting for a satisfying relationship but living a graceless, rule-bound existence. Please, God, set me free, and don't let me go crazy in the process.
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