Enjoy your freedom

Galatians is a book in the Bible all about freedom. Paul urges us that God in Christ has indeed removed from us the burden of sin, and also bondage to the law. Law and  rule keeping… all these things were met in Christ. He did it all for us. He met the law, the obligations, the requirements… everything He met completely, and for all time… so we can be free. 

But are we?

We are harassed by a never ending burden of obligation and expectation. Where’s the freedom? 

In church they issue challenges, “How are you with God?” Or “How will you apply this to your life?” These questions subtly tell us that we must do more. We must strive harder to please God. 

But hang on a second… if we are truly free why are we being told to do more for God. Does God even need us to do anything for Him? He didn’t need us in the first place. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are, and have always been, wholly complete within the Godhead. 

God created us out of love and pure delight. He created us to know Him. He created us so we could share in His joy and love. He created us to have a childlike innocence to trust and enjoy Him. He created us from His fullness to lavish us with all good things. He created us so we could be creators, or “sub-creators” as Tolkien called it. We are not “the Creator”, but we create from that which God has already made.

God did not create us because He needed us. 

Something went horribly wrong at the fall. Our innocent trust fell away and was replaced by self- obsession, absorbed by the desire to be our own god. Us, created in His image, instead of reflecting the One who created us, wanted to take the glory and be acknowledged for all our gifts… as if we created ourselves. The self-made man or woman is nothing but a fallacy. 

Where’s the freedom?

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1)

Freedom is found in Christ. At the cross of Jesus all was made right again before God. The law was met at the cross.

God created us out of beauty.

The fall stripped all the beauty away and left us festering in our own filth and mess. 

Jesus did the most beautiful thing this world has ever seen by dying a horrific death on a cross to save us from the burden of our sins and remove from us the need to meet the law. I am forgiven, you are forgiven. 

End of story. 

In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe after Aslan, the Lion, comes back to life after a terrible death at the hands of the White Witch, he then takes the children on a “wild romp”. He plays with them, he rejoices with them, he laughs with them.

God desires that for us. Lay your burdens down. Go and enjoy your freedom.