Freedom and leashes

For the Lord is Spirit,

and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17

I've been thinking a lot about freedom lately.

Freedom in Christ is often seriously misunderstood these days.  People somehow get the idea that Freedom in Christ means freedom to sin, when it actually mean freedom from sin.  Jesus came to free us from the bondage of sin (Romans 6:6-10).  Sin is not good.  Sin is bad, harmful, destructive, and it leads to death.  Our movies and novels consistently present a deceiving line of thought that says sin is fun, desirable, and it makes us happy.  We regularly escape reality and immerse ourselves in fictitious stories about people who call themselves courageous when they throw aside loyalty and altruism in favor of selfishness, people who have sex as casually as a conversation and never bear a scar from it, people who do nothing but lie, and it results in good cheer, rather than serious consequences.  We fall under the delusion that these things can translate to real life.

We praise the right to pursue happiness, and in our minds the words, "right to pursue happiness"--whatever the founding fathers might have meant them to mean--morph into the the phrase, "freedom to do whatever makes me happy."  We think sin is the thing we need the freedom to pursue, and some people think Freedom in Christ grants that very desire.

This morning I woke up thinking hard about freedom and righteousness, and other things.

I need to work through the serious (and seriously misunderstood) difference between righteousness and self-righteousness.  Self-righteousness is bad.  It flows from pride and a mistaken idea of self-sufficiency.  It may start out looking something like righteousness, but it is not sustainable.  Because of its roots in pride, self-righteousness always sours over time and becomes full of rigid bitterness.  But righteousness, plain righteousness, is good.  It's an attribute of God, and Jesus died expressly for the purpose of imparting it to us.  

He Himself, Jesus,

bore our sins in His body

on the tree,

that we might die to sin

and live to righteousness.

By His wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24

We are saved for righteousness.  Real, visible, beautiful righteousness.  Righteousness is God's way, God's design, and when we live in righteousness, everything flows smoothly.  Or, I guess I should say, if we would live in righteousness, everything would flow smoothly.  At base level, righteousness is the opposite of sin, and it is what we need.  [This is a thumbnail for a post I hope to work on soon.  Sometimes I think I should rename this blog, "Processing Life in Rough Draft."]

For now, I need to say this:

We can only safely receive freedom after we have learned to love righteousness.

Many years ago, when Piper (may he sleep in peace beneath the pines) was a wee pup, we tried to take him to obedience school.  This endeavor was largely futile, although he was a good dog, and easy to have around.  He was too little when we enrolled him, and I think all it did was convince him of his dog phobia.  I remember eight years later, when we brought little Schubert home as a puppy, Piper just kept telling me, in his wordless, doggy way, "Mom. You know I have a dog phobia.  Why would you bring a dog into our home?"

I digress.  I bring up puppy obedience school, because I remember that the teacher spoke passionately about the importance of dog obedience.

"If you can teach your dog to obey voice commands," he said, "you will have a free dog.  When you know your dog will come if you say, 'Come,' or  hit the ground if you shout, 'Down!' you can take him anywhere, even off-leash.  It's just amazing.  That's a free dog.  It's the reason why we do this."

When the Spirit of God transforms our hearts to the point where we love righteousness, then we are free.  We are free to do what we love, and only good will result, because we are walking in the way of God, the way He designed for creation to work.  There is incredible freedom when we find ourselves swimming along with the current of the God who created the Universe, instead of trying to butt heads with Him.

Some pictures of Duffy on a leash, 

because he is certainly not ready 

to handle the freedom of being off-leash.

If this small fellow could break away with the intensity of his straining, he would shortly find himself crushed under the wheels of a car.  May we look, and understand, and submit ourselves to the merciful protection of our loving heavenly Father.