Freedom Swagger

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom.

It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged, that freedom is never free.

There is a Korean War Veterans monument in Washington DC that is embossed with those words “Freedom is not free”, spoken also in Alabama, December 3^rd 1959 by Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Both these parties know the truth of that statement. In both cases, freedom cost a lot of fighting, a lot of sacrifice and lives lost for the cause.

War is of course the textbook example of the price of freedom.

A second truth, contrary to popular belief is that no matter how much freedom, or independence, you believe you have you are always ruled by something.

The world would have us believe that being free comes from disobedience, rebellion and sin; as if the source of freedom is doing whatever you want even if it’s self-destructive.

Here’s what I’ve learnt, and some of these from experience, that no matter where you find “freedom” there will always be a respective aspect that binds you or rules you:

If you find freedom in persistently getting drunk, you are ruled by the alcohol you consume and are bound by the consequences of your actions.

If you find freedom in smoking cigarettes or taking drugs, you become ruled by your addictions and bound your desire for that next high.

If you find freedom in sleeping with whoever you want, you are ruled by a desire for intimacy and affirmation of self-worth and bound by the possibility you’ve lost your chance of finding it. You may also become bound by self-inflicted disease.

If you find freedom in lying, you are ruled by your own deceit and bound by your lies.

If you find freedom in cheating, you are ruled by your guilt and bound by your betrayal.

If you find freedom in being independently wealthy, or at least being financially stable, you are ruled by money and bound by the need to obtain it.

If you find freedom in your own speech, regardless of what you’re saying, you are ruled by your limited understanding and bound by your opinions.

If you find freedom in excitement, you are ruled by adrenalin and bound by the limits of your mind and body.

If you find freedom in relationships, you are ruled by the fidelity of the other person, and you are bound to be disappointed.

There is always a cost for freedom. If we consider the greatest freedom is love we need to consider this:

True love requires sacrifices for the one you love.

How many times have you coupled freedom with sacrifice in your concept of freedom?

There is no freedom without cost, without sacrifice, but I know Someone who has already paid the cost and made the sacrifice for my freedom.

If you find freedom in anything less than the deep, wide, unfathomable love and promise of life to the full that Jesus gives unconditionally then you are missing freedom.

When you are ruled by One whose pleasure is in your true freedom, you have nothing to lose.

God prioritised our freedom from the beginning when He withdrew part of His own power over our choices and our lives in order that we might freely choose His authority over our lives. It was a decision that made it possible for us not to choose Him but He knew it to be essential.

Because without freedom true love cannot exist.

Unless you choose to love me, I will not be loved by you.

And in the same way unless we choose to love God it is not love. If we were programmed to love God there would be no relationship because there would be no real love.

So if you submit to the Ultimate Authority you will, because the Kingdom of Heaven is amazingly paradoxical, receive Ultimate Freedom. How could you not?

You are serving and trusting in the Author of Freedom.

Who knows freedom better than Him?

This is a freedom from the guilt, bitterness, hurt, anger, grudges, complexes, patterns and failures of the past; from fears, insecurities, uncertainties and dread about the future; and from anything that is limiting the fullness of our life with Christ in the present. I guess the question I’ll leave you to ponder is this: Have you claimed this freedom, and are you walking it out?

This right here is my freedom swagger.



Telling the Truth

Placing real life stories

In fictional settings

Is almost as fun as telling the truth

So forgive me love

For my servant’s heart

I’m a little like Mary and a bit like Ruth.

I carve the breath in my lungs

Shaping the words I want to say to you

Each one is detailed craftsmanship

But all are see-through.

I can hold each letter but you’re too numb to feel the syllables

By now you should know better than to expect the unpredictable

Love keeps slipping from my lips

Like the silk dress from my shoulders

Warmth is in my fingertips

But my eyes grow colder

I never thought this would be us

Growing bitter, growing older

I thought that we had all we needed

I thought that we were golden.

My Heart in My Mouth

The boy who taught me to feel

Was the same boy who broke my heart

What a sadist.

The boy who gave me those songs I love

Was the reason I stopped listening to them

Oh how selfish.

Oh how selfish.

With my heart in my mouth

I can taste all the bitterness it holds

I try to lift up my prayers

But I’m crushed by the weight of my soul

And through all of these struggles

My body is growing so old

I search in the dirt for glory

I destroy myself looking for gold.

The world that welcomed me in

Is the same world that has just thrown me out

What betrayal.

The world that once was my home

Has moved somewhere else without warning

This is hell.

This is hell.

With my heart in my mouth

I can taste all the bitterness it holds

I try to lift up my prayers

But I’m crushed by the weight of my soul

And through all of these struggles

My body is growing so old

I search in the dirt for glory

I destroy myself looking for gold.

Force-feeding

This is part two of “Speaking Boldly”. However this one is a caution to be taken in the case of speaking boldly. I want to make it clear that I believe there to be an important difference between being bold in sharing the gospel and being downright obnoxious.

Too many times, my non-Christian friends have told me stories of zealous Christians jumping down their throats and completely turning them off Jesus and Christian faith. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’re mistaken to share, nor am I meaning to criticise people who are eager to talk about Jesus at every chance they get but I think there is a key point here:

We need to be discerning.

We can take our example here from the apostle Philip. This guy shows us how to be in tune with the Spirit to indicate to us when, where and with who we need to share. In Acts 8:26-39 Philip comes alongside a eunuch who is struggling with a piece of Scripture from Isaiah. The Spirit indicates this man to Philip and therefore presents an opportunity for Philip to share the gospel to a heart that is open and searching for Truth. The end of this story sees the eunuch getting baptised and becoming a believer in Christ. Now the key part here is that Philip takes his cue from the Spirit. He doesn’t begin sharing until the Spirit indicates the guy and tells him to. This is the difference. The eunuch was in a place to receive and so the sharing was effective.

Here’s another way to of to see it:

No-one gets a taste for food they’ve been force fed.

In fact they may never eat it again.

My sister has never quite recovered from junior school when they forced her to eat cod fish-fingers every Friday, to the point that at aged 22 she still can’t face them.

In the same way if we want people to “taste and see” the beauty of Jesus, delight in Him and regard Him as their “Bread of Life” then we must not ram the gospel down their throats. The Good News is something that deserves to be taken in carefully, that requires savouring, and, therefore, an open mouth.

We also need to be feeding ourselves on what we’re offering them. It’s like the poisoned apple idea. If we’re not eating what we’re offering, what’s wrong with it?

In other words, if we’re telling people Jesus will change their life and yet we haven’t allowed Him to transform our own, what does that look like to non-believers?

Likewise, we shouldn’t be handing people food and walking away.

We need to be inviting them to eat with us.

Think about when you’ve ever invite people to dinner. As the host you make sure of a few things, right? Like:

1. You are well prepared for them.
2. You know what you are going to eat.
3. Most likely you know what you that the food is good and you have eaten it before.
4. You are going to be present at dinner.

I, personally, would feel awkward if I came to your house to dinner and you said “Oh Isla, so glad you could make it” and then proceeded to get your coat, head for the door and leave me alone at the dinner table. Not good. In the same way, if you served me something saying “I’ve never tried it myself but someone told me it’s good”, I would be suspicious. It’s the same with spreading the word:

1. Be prepared. (Be spiritually fed yourself.)

2.  Know what you’re talking about. (Devour His Word.)

3. Live it out. (Practice what you preach, before you preach it.)

4. Be there. (Meet people where they are and love them.)

So yes I pray for boldness, for myself and all of you reading this, but I also pray for discernment and sensitivity to God’s timing and the indications of the Spirit, not just our own enthusiasm or intuition.

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks. Love you all. God Bless.

Speaking Boldly (Get Your Preach On)

Something that has struck me recently whilst reading Acts is the amount of times there are references to the apostles “speaking boldly” about Jesus. It got me thinking about how much I live it out.

I’m up to chapter 14 and so far I’ve read the phrase at least six times and seen many more examples of it in the actions of the apostles.

In Acts 4 it’s mentioned three times, in verses 13, 29 and 31. In fact verse 29 is about ‘The Believers’ praying for God to grant them “to speak Your word with all boldness”.

And I thought to myself; when was the last time I prayed for that?

How about you?

And then verse 31…BAM prayer answered.

They’re filled with the Holy Spirit and “spoke the word of God with boldness”.

Just like that.

“Boldness please, God.” Done.

So what does this boldness look like lived out?

Well I like the example in Acts 6 of the guy chosen to be one of the seven ‘deacons’, Stephen. Now as Stephen is going about preaching the word and performing “great wonders and signs among the people” members of a Synagogue get mad and begin to argue with him. But they fail to defeat him, as, in verse 10, “they could not stand up against the wisdom and Spirit in which he spoke”. Stephen spoke boldly. But his boldness in speaking was because of the Spirit and the wisdom the Spirit gave him. This effectively meant that no-one could dispute the Truth he was speaking.

Example number one: Stephen spoke boldly.

The second example, (there are tons but these two will be sufficient for a blog I feel…) is the boldness of Ananias in Acts 9 for his part of the conversion of Saul. I love this story because Ananias has such a genuine, relatable reaction to God’s instruction to go to Saul: “Lord, you can’t be serious. This guy has been persecuting, even killing Your people in Jerusalem and You want me to go pray for him?!”

And God said “Yes.”

Because He had big plans for Saul. So Ananias walks boldly into the house where Saul is staying and lays hands on Saul and prays for him to receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

BAM. His boldness in the Spirit is rewarded by the conversion of one man from the greatest enemy of the early church to one of its most eager preachers.

I can’t hardly imagine the boldness it took Ananias to walk into that house let alone pray for the man who had been granted complete freedom to destroy Christians. I wonder if I could do that. Could you?

Lessons learned so far:

To receive boldness all you have to do is ask.

Boldness gives its vessel a new power, if the boldness is founded in Spirit and Truth.

To walk in boldness all you’ve got to do is obey God’s will.

Last lesson for now: Boldness breeds boldness.

Ananias speaks boldly over Saul (Acts 9:17), about 10 verses later (Acts 9:27-29) what is Saul doing?

I’ll give you three guesses.

Killing Christians?

Nope.

Taking a time-out?

No sir.

“He spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 9:29)

Bingo.

So here’s the Boldness four-step, if you will:

Prayer

Foundation in Spirit and Truth

Walking it out in obedience

Watching your boldness breed boldness in others

(OK, boldness hardly looks like a word anymore I’ve written so many times. Hope I got my point across. If not: boldness, boldness, boldness…boldness…BOLDNESS)

So my prayer for us is this:

I pray that God gives us the courage we need to go out there and do what God has called us to and do it boldly. I pray for an anointing of boldness in the Spirit over all who read this and desire it. I want to see a new boldness in the way I speak about Jesus, a new boldness in my soul that doesn’t flinch at challenging requests from God but follows in obedience the path set out ahead of me. In Proverbs 28:1 it says “the righteous are as bold as a lion” and I believe if we all lived this out we would see powerful change in ourselves and the people who we impact for the glory of God. I pray that we would all seek this, claim this and walk it out in Spirit and Truth.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Would love to hear what you guys think. Just something I’ve been thinking about so pull me up on anything you want to. Appreciate it! Love you all.

Eight Six

Oh boy, you had me at ‘enamoured’

I love a man with a good command of vocabulary and grammar.

Oh boy, you had me with that Bible verse,

Yet it seems you haven’t grasped the meaning of those recited words.

You misconstrue, and that’s intriguing

But it’s pitiful.

You exaggerate, which is sad

And yet it’s beautiful.

You admire me and I like that

But it’s not enough

You said it yourself

You just don’t know that much about love.

So like the seal upon a letter

I am bound to you

You pressed the crest of your ring onto my heart.

My arm burns from your touch

As if you branded me

I am yours to keep and yours to tear apart.

Love is as strong as death

And believe me,

I have a feeling this might kill me.

This might kill me.

Take me with you

There’s a definite difference

Between “I will” and “I may”

Will has assurance and force

But there’s mystery and nuance in May

And the weather’s not too bad either.

My songs are about loss

Like my heart lost to romance

Or losing my mind.

The loss of my inhibitions

Or my self.

To lose a long awaited joy

Or banish a lingering fear

Although the last is perhaps a gaining loss

When something better fills the void

I’ve lost my place

Where was I?

Where am I?

Where are you going?

Take me with you.

I’ve lost my name

Who was I?

Who am I?

Who are you going to be?

Let me be with you.

And there it is

I awoke late night

Early morning

To note an idea

And it swarms the page

Against my will.

I’m the words’ puppet

With this pen in hand

I feel so used

Yet I just can’t put it down

It takes my place

Where was I?

Where am I?

Where are you going?

Take me with you.

It steals me away

Who was I?

Who am I?

Who are you going to be?

Let me be with you.