Free

What does it mean to truly be free?

It's interesting because free is actually different from freedom. I can have freedom and still not be free.

Get it? Having free will is not being free. Actually, the longer you walk with God, the more you realize that free will is often the antithesis of being free. Can I get an Amen?

Being free has nothing to do with having the freedom to do whatever you want. It has nothing to do with being above something. It has nothing to do with being free of something, negative or positive. These may be byproducts, but not the essence of being free. Being free is this: knowing who you are IN God and who God is. See when you know this, nothing has hold on you. Good or bad.

Free is characterized by the truth. Who you truly are and who God truly is.

Being free has to do with living out truth. Or perhaps being vulnerable enough to let the truth find you.

The most free person, is the person that is 100% him or herself consistently. It is only in being real, that you meet the living God. See God won't heal a figment of your imagination or the person you try to be or not be. He fixes you, the real you. We aren't really fooling anyone, least of all God.

I've realized something after 8 intentional years of following God:

I will never reach my fullest potential, the greatest version of myself, if I'm not free. Unless every thing is in it's rightful place, starting with God.

So how do you even become free?

I mean I can say I'm myself and I love God, and He's on the throne, and yet still be consumed in insecurity, fear, and inadequacy. Still be held by people's opinions. Still need the security of money or material goods. Still be held by affirmation from men.

Here's what I think:

You aren't really free, unless you've experienced being shackled without the key. To really understand what it means to be free, you have to learn to thrive in prison. That's why Joseph was a monster. He thrived everywhere. His free was not based on favorable circumstances or even well being. It was a different caliber of free.

See because in order to be indestructible, you have to be destroyed first. That's like the basic tenet of the Bible. Unless a grain falls to the ground and dies, it will not yield a harvest. Jesus was crucified before He lived forever.

Once you die and rise, nothing else matters except the One that rose you. You are gripped, seized, consumed by Him and His purposes for you.

And when that happens. People's opinions, the world's titles, that man or woman's level of attraction to you, how much money you make, how many people you get to come to church, whatever mediocre measure of status, acceptance, or love you may have needed or deemed important, all of these things become laughable.

I would have to argue that David killed Goliath, not because he had courage, not even because he had immense faith.

He killed Goliath because he was free. Free to fail or succeed. Free to be a shepherd boy in front of a giant. Free to wrestle with his own inadequacy and lack of skill and simultaneously believe in a God who uses the meek to humble the mighty. David didn't give a flying crap about his competence or lack thereof. He just knew who He belonged to.

David became Goliath in that moment. He became a beast.

Free understands who God is in comparison to every worldly construct, even humans. Who messes with the armies of the living God? said David. It's not that he thought he could win, he knew God already won. It's that simple.

Let's keep it real. The majority of Christians in America will never fully understand this level of victory. They will never experience surviving the lions' den, slaying the giant, thriving in prison.

Why?

Because they choose free will over being free. We consistently choose our familiar, comfortable, satisfying, easy, agendas over God's fire, over His training, over His pruning.

Wanna know the easiest antidote for our lazy, disgusting, existence?

Saying this phrase:

"Not my will, but Thy will be done."

Isn't that what Jesus said in the Garden before He was crucified?

Isn't that what Moses essentially did when he threw down his staff? He submitted everything he had, everything he was to God, who eventually turned him into a sea-divider.

Isn't that what Abraham did when he tied Isaac to that altar?

See when you say those four words, you say to God: I no longer belong to myself or to the world, I belong to You. I am willing to give up what is most precious to me.

And then you will experience a death, a throwing down, that will result in eternal and glorious consequences: victory, miracles, power, joy, love.

You will be free.

Free understands more fully a God who gives freely, graciously, and without measure or condition, to all His children

Free also exalts and praises a God who takes away, disciplines, trains in love

Free understands the sovereignty of a God who in EVERY circumstance is for us

Free understands that Jesus overcame the entire world. Past tense.

When you are free, you are not weighed down anymore by anything or anyone. Not even yourself.

You fly.

And as you fly, you have one and only one aim:

To get to the One who gave you your wings.