Sweet Liberty!

When I arrived in Afghanistan six months ago, I began to feel this strange relief of being away from the context of the American church. While initially I couldn’t really understand that relief, I came to realize that my years in that Church context had left me with a rather profound sense of condemnation that I simply would never be a “good Christian”. While I am convinced that this is not unique to the States (this is only the environment in which I have experienced it), the Church in the States really seems to have bought into the cookie-cutter picture of what a Christian “should” look like. With that image comes a laundry list of spoken and unspoken rules of what we are and are not supposed to do, the vast majority of which are never addressed in the Bible. And so comes the condemnation.

I feel like much of the Church in America is bordering on becoming pharisaic. The Pharisees created for themselves hundreds of laws. They essentially “micromanaged” righteousness into something they could achieve through their own strength and discipline. Thus, they effectively eliminated any need for the Messiah. In Matt 5, Christ says that He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In fact, He says that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes. From there, He goes on to say some absolutely absurd things – if you’re angry with your brother, it’s like murder; if you look lustfully, it’s like adultery, etc. In the face of these hyper-Jews who are convinced that they have got the whole holiness-thing down, Christ demonstrates that every single one of us are totally and completely condemned under the law.

With all this, the law becomes a means not for man to achieve holiness on his own account or with his own strength, but a means for proving conclusively that there is not one man (save Christ) that will ever reach the true mark of holiness and perfection. This has the potential to cause utter discouragement and hopelessness if we don’t have the second part of the story – that Christ has won that righteousness for us and has freed us from the condemnation of the law (Romans 8 – “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death”).

With this realization, I have been exploring what that freedom really looks like. I don’t believe that my freedom is a license to sin (1 Peter 2:16), but nor do I believe that many of the things the Church has labeled as sin are thus. In all this, I have felt challenged to return to the true fundamentals of the foremost two commandments to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. This is something that still thoroughly confuses me, particularly as Christ so frequently says that obedience is the demonstration or outpouring of our love for the Father. I confess I do not know what obedience looks like, which rather scares me. I know that I love God and frequently fail to demonstrate it in action. But I also know that I am in the midst of untangling myself from the rules that have condemned me.

I want to know what true obedience and true righteousness look like. I want to be radical in the way that I love God and those around me. I want to shine out a message of hope to this world. And I want to be free of stupid rules and pictures of what some guy in a suit thinks that should look like.

I should be clear that I really don’t think that this is unique to the American Church (it’s just the context in which I have experienced it). I also trust that many of those that hold so tightly to their rules and fundamentals do actually have a genuine love for God, as did, I suspect, many of the Pharisees, however much we may demonize them. It’s not them that we should look at, but at ourselves and our ability to condemn one another in our pride and fear.

I am discovering that, while I have walked with the Lord for years, I have essentially missed the truth of the freedom that was won for me on that cross. I think God is calling us to a life of liberty and love of Him and of one another. The opportunity to relish and rejoice in that freedom only causes me to want to love God more and is, I am sure, far more attractive to those who do not know Christ than the condemnation that we Christians too often offer.

So, these are my thoughts … I’m still wrestling with it. I think I have a lot of it in concept, but am now trying to fight the Enemy’s attack that keeps trying to keep me under condemnation.