So I have been away for a while, like over a year while...but seeing as I am the sole contributor, and probably reader, of this blog I guess its not a big deal. The reason I started this blog is two fold; I needed an outlet and secondly a certain life event led me here to start this blog, and similarly a life event has brought me back. As to the first life event you can learn about that here and here, and the second life event is much more simple. I told my wife about the blog, read a couple entries to her, and she said it was good, so if she thinks its good then I will try my best to be a more faithful poster.
This entry requires a brief, or as brief as I am capable of being, explanation. Its actually part 3 of a series (if you cant tell by the title), its not that I didn't have a conclusion previously, its just that my life shifted drastically and my attention was required elsewhere, and with good reason. Now I will briefly sum up the previous two post and their main points, or you can just go back to the archive and read them for yourself. In the first post I question the idea of freedom, freedom nowadays is usually summed up on the ground level as "People should be allowed to do what they want!" which if we really think about it is utterly ridiculous. So to fix this we normally add to it by saying something like "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else." Sounds nice, but this does not fix the problem, you cannot give people the leeway to be completely selfish and permit them to do everything and expect it not to affect anyone else negatively. We could go into endless examples I am sure.
In the second post we dived into the lies that dominate this way of thinking, and how they are kept hidden from us. Things like the illusion that we are in control, that we are basically good and we would never do anything destructive or hurtful with our freedom; in-spite of all human history as evidence to the contrary. Then we talked about the false identity your "freedom" wants to put on you. Let me give one example of this.
I have now three daughters (prayers are appreciated), I consider it an honor to protect their purity, I hope that all three hold back from sex until they are married. This is not idealism, or some vain hope, but in conversations, even with well meaning people, they always say "well, wait until they are teenagers." They assume that teenagers have to experiment with sex or that they are most likely going to, and here is the thing...That may very well be my daughters story one day, but just because it happens, and even if it happens to the majority, it does not mean it has to be my girls story. I hope that this is something that I make clear to them all of their lives. That the truth is that whatever is considered normal in their culture "does NOT have to be their story." The identity being forced on them is this goofy overly sexualized idea of adolescence, and by telling them that this doesn't have to be their story, I am actually giving them more freedom in how they choose to shape their lives
In a nutshell, our westernish concept of freedom is hacked up in such a way that it actually binds us up.
So here is the kicker, this is where I attempt to bring it all home. We are all bound, a "slave" if you will, to something. Its just obvious if we ever take a time out to look at ourselves and the world around us. Everyone is living for something, but this false "freedom" wants you to think that you are totally in control, the master of your destiny, which is also a silly notion if we really think about it. The follow through lie then offered to us is that you, unlike everyone else, are serving something positive, that your motives are pure. I want to offer myself up as an example to hopefully disprove this to you.
I previously mentioned my daughters, and I think through very specific and intentional things to hopefully teach, love and serve my daughters well. No one would fault me for this, but I am constantly drawn back to my motives for doing so. The Christian answer is that I do these thing for the Glory of God, because he loves my daughters more than I do, and he gave them to me to learn how to steward hearts and sacrifice and consider others better than myself, and sometimes, by God's grace and not my strength, this is absolutely where my heart and my motives are. However, I would be lying if I said this was the reality all of the time, or even most of the time. Normally its because I want my daughters to comply, to serve my kingdom, I want them to behave to spare myself some embarrassment or I want others to see how good of a parent I am or I just want them to be well behaved.
So I want you to do two things for me. Examine yourself for a moment and figure out what your master is, and the what are your motives for chasing it down, are they really pure? Go ahead, I'll wait...
Usually people tend to think that the bible is about morality, and although it does contain morals, and does have something to say about morality, this view of the bible is simply lacking and untrue, it is not merely about morality, not even barely about morality. So with confidence, and evidence to show this that can be saved for a different post, I want to share a scripture that proves my point. Maybe you don't believe in all this stuff, then please just humor me and go on this journey in a hypothetical sense. If the bible is the word of God then we should probably pay very close attention when Jesus is speaking. I think this is a fare assumption, so Jesus tells us, recorded in two gospels that we all serve a master, and in fact it is impossible to serve two masters at once, you will hate one and love the other.
How does this tie in? Well Jesus is telling us that there really is no freedom, at least not in the American since. There are masters and slaves, and for those of us that think we are truly free we are really only fooling ourselves. I am sure it wouldn't take too long in conversation to find out what you truly value and how it controls you. You may for instance be a slave to money, so you spend endless amounts of time at work and ignore your family (I know there are variables to this, but this is a pretty straightforward and easy example.) You may get to be closer to your master, and may convince yourself that you did all of this for your family, but the sacrifice you pay is that your kids may not have a relationship with their father. You chased the happiness you thought the money would bring at the cost of the joy you would of had spending time with your family. However, you can go the opposite way and live for and idolize and worship your family, specifically your children. If we want to see this in action go watch toddlers & tiaras, there are just too many problems to name with that show.
So Jesus identifies that we all serve a master, and in his statement he suggest that its either him or someone or something else. Fundamentalist would say the "devil" which may be true in part, but the whole answer is actually much broader. It is that we either serve Jesus or anything else. Whatever we place our ultimate hope in trust in, even if that is ourselves, is our master. So Jesus draws a pretty solid line, and later the apostle Paul clings to this identity that Jesus offers, in his letter to the Romans he even introduces himself as a slave to Christ. The reason you and I dont, is because we dont really understand what is being offered two us, and in our foolish little hearts we think that we can find the goodness that Christ offers in things other than him. It really is that simple.
We want the benefits of serving Christ without actually serving Christ. It's very common, and very appealing. Maybe my hiatus didn't help to tie all three post together neatly, but at the very least, maybe there is some food for thought.
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