Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. (Gal 5:1)
Let these words sink down into your soul. Grapple them to your heart, bind them as frontlets before your eyes.
You are complete in Christ. You are a dearly loved child of God. The curse of the law said, “Do this and live”. But that ensnared you in an endless cycle of attempting keeping up with a standard that you had already broken. How can you love God with your whole heart when God is angry with you because of your sins.
In the law, you can only approach God as a judge; never as a father.
But Christ fulfilled that law perfectly in your place. The curse of the law was placed upon him and he died instead of you.
And now you are set free. Set free.
Not to fulfill your lusts and to walk in hatred and enmity, but set free to love God and love your neighbor. You can now love freely without fear. You can walk in the commandments of God, which are good and give life and freedom of conscience. And when your conscience is free through the gospel you are free indeed.
So why are we so eager to be ensnared again in the endless cycle of “Do this and live”? Why do we spend thousands on books and conferences to tell us all the ways that we disappoint God, that we don’t measure up, that we have failed?
Why do we allow the celebrity preachers tell us that our clothes are too feminine or our voices are too high? Why do we allow the elite to tell us to “quit acting gay” whatever on earth that means? Does it mean that I am not supposed to like poetry and art? Does it mean that the schoolyard bullies were right and I am somehow not a man because I don’t play sports and don’t like hunting and can’t imagine sitting through an entire baseball game, much less playing one?
Why do we allow someone we have never met put us again in bondage by telling us how to submit to our husbands more, be more feminine, be meeker, be better, do more…? And then we pay them for it??
Does this make any sense to you?
God gave us Ten Commandments, and he added no more. As Christians we seek to please God. So here is what is pleasing to God. Love him and love your neighbor. And please quit paying celebrities to tell you how to be more manly, more feminine, more submissive, a better leader, what to eat, what to wear, what businesses to shop at, what businesses to avoid, what music to listen to, what books to read.
Why did we allow someone we never met convince us to never, ever allow our kids to read Harry Potter? Why did we allow someone we never met, who was never ordained and not married tell us to not allow our kids to date? Why did we allow an organization that spent hours and hours watching pornography so they could tell us how bad it is teach us about “family values”?
Does this make any sense to you?
Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made you free.
If you like beer, buy one. If you want to wear a flowered pink shirt because you like the colors, wear it. If you like romantic movies and tear up at the end of Babe when the farmer says, “That’ll do, pig”, then by all means to so and don’t let some half-baked, self-promoting pseudo-guru continue to plague you with guilt because he has rolled his crystal ball and decided that you weren’t manly enough, or feminine enough, or submissive enough, or a good enough leader. (I need a deep breath after that sentence.)
Aren’t you tired of it? Aren’t you tired of the never ending line of rich, popular preachers continually adding more and more to the commandments of God?
Instead of continually searching your heart to see if you desire God enough, look at Christ and what he has given you. Instead of continually searching your wardrobe to make sure you clothes are manly enough, look at Christ, the Son of man and the son of God, and live boldly. Instead of searching the blogs to see if you are a submissive enough wife, simply look to Christ and live.
Stand fast in the life and liberty that he purchased for you with his precious blood.
Every time a new commandment is invented, we sell a little more of our liberty for a mess of pottage. It is the mentality of the slave. Quit making the bricks for Pharaoh. Quit giving these guys clicks. Quit going to their conferences and quit buying their books.
Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made you free.
Look that transgender fellow in the eye and stop being afraid. Take your gay friend to lunch and stop being afraid. Love your wife boldly and quit fearing the opinions of people that you won’t ever meet.
As for me, I will continue to listen to Barbra Streisand and Lady Gaga, if I want to. And Pink Floyd and Queen when I want to, because sin isn’t something you catch off of a record. You might catch me listening to Gorecki or Passenger depending on my mood, but I certainly don’t check the opinion of some blowhard before I decide what kind of music I like. This is what liberty is.
If you look at my library, you will find Calvin and Berkhof, Stephen King and Nora Roberts. And I won’t ask your opinion before I buy a book I like. Because sin isn’t something you catch from reading the wrong books – otherwise Christ would not have died. If we could have been saved from our sins by proper censorship, we would not have needed Christ to die for our sins.
I will wear my sparkly paisley shirt and my lavender tie, and wear my stripey socks and use soap that makes me smell nice just because I want to, and I am created in God’s image and have no problem reflecting his beauty and strength and wisdom.
I will continue to moisturize because I like how my face feels when it isn’t all dried out and I just don’t give a fig anymore if some testosterone-challenged, knuckle-dragging, schoolyard bully thinks I’m effeminate or not. My wife likes me just the way I am and she’s the one who has to live with me.
And more importantly, God calls me his child. He has put my sins far, far away from me and calls me to live in liberty for his glory, and not according to the doctrines and commandments of men.
My Only Comfort 
Oh my, I’m taking a breath now after reading this. Thank you for speaking love and truth to me . I so needed to read these words, take them in, and rest. You have been such a blessing to me today. God bless you and please keeping speaking truth.
I am FREE! Thanks, Sam.
I don’t know what the porn-watching organization line is about or where it is from but I wouldn’t vouch for porn being part of ‘freedom’. If ‘family values’ is anti-porn, pro-marriage and loving one’s wife, instead of dehumanizing, lusting after and monetarily rewarding rapists, pimps and other misogynists of the porn industry, then who wouldn’t be for ‘family values’?
Surely you are not pro-porn in the pro-choice/freedom argument you’ve made?
Know who is featured in porn? By and large, women who were sexually abused or raped or molested as children. Women who are mentally ill. Poor women. Homeless women. Drug-addicted, drugged out of their minds, thus unable to ‘consent’ women. Women who don’t have options in life. Abused women. Raped women. Developmentally disabled women. Women with disabilities. Desperate women.
And lecherous, entitled, pro-rape, male misogynists, ‘johns’ purchase the recorded rape of prostituted women. That is what porn is. And because it is men’s masturbatory material, they have a flood of chemicals in there brain when they get off on some woman’s subjugation, dehumanization, abuse, rape, pain, humiliation, and suffering. Then, they want more and more disturbing, sickening stuff because they become more and more desensitized to the violence inherent in porn.
Porn involves real, actual women being beaten, raped, humiliated, strangled, and worse. Real women are being harmed. It is done to real women. And in order to get paid they have to act like they like it, want it, that it’s sexy.
Where else do you have a captive, subjugated, beaten, raped, humiliated person being forced to smile and ask for more as they are being harmed?
I’ll go for ‘family values’ if it’s anti-porn. What’s wrong with being anti-porn?! In case you have been brainwashed into thinking there is no actual harm involved, have it done to you. Be beaten, whipped, choked, peed on, and more. Try out the poses that the porno models are made to do, see how body punishing such poses are. See how degraded you actually feel. It’s not ‘sexy.’ It’s not prudish of anyone to be anti-porn.
You must study what it is that you critique. To watch porn, just a sampling of the top porn sites’ featured stuff, acquaints you with the vile world that the porn industry actually is. I don’t know what organization watched hours of porn, but there is an author, professor, and speaker by the name of Gail Dines and she talks about porn, studied porn, and will show how evil porn actually is.
Those who are pro-‘family values’ are often conservative, patriarchal, and not exactly where my sentiments lie, but when it comes to porn? Absolutely. Anti-porn is the place to be. There is nothing acceptable about porn. Nothing. Prostitution is paid rape. Porn is recorded prostitution. Porn is recorded, paid rape.
I agree with you 100%. Re-read my post again. It Is certainly not a defense of pornography. Quite the opposite. You don’t need to immerse yourself into it for hours to tell people how vile it is. That was my only point
Yes, of course. And what a great point it is. Shock and awe is my response. What is mainstream now is basically what they call gonzo porn. Gail Dines and others who actively fight against study it. I pity her. It affects everyone.
I took it wrong. Sorry about that. Yes, a second time around and I got your original point.
I really liked this,Sam. We tend to have such a powerful need for people favor, for approval, for love. That’s part of the reason why we so often find ourselves in abusive relationships or tied to false teachers. So the cure is actually for us to love one another more as Jesus told us too. We should be lifting up, praising, edifying one another.
Pingback: Liberty - The Aquila Report