"Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty."(2 Corinthians 3:17)
Here are Alan's notes from our series on another aspect of holiness, spiritual freedom or liberty.
The connection of holiness and liberty or freedom is part of our Salvation Army history. Brengle’s books on holiness were published by the Army as “The Liberty Library”
Pauls words above were written to a people who were falling into a trap of trying to live up to particular standards and meet the expectations of others in order to try and re-establish a right standing with God. It was paralyzing their Christian experience.
Holiness is simply about letting the Spirit of Jesus have His way in our lives. It is not about earning His approval but receiving power and grace from Him to follow Him.
There is great liberty in this.
1 LIBERTY TO PARALYSED WALKERS
Walkers on the Christian pathway are called to walk in liberty. Galatians Chap 3 verse 1 says, 'We are called to freedom', and verse 16 of the same chapter tells us to 'walk by the Spirit'.
Lloyd John Ogilvie writes that in his opinion the "truly free people he has met have been the people who have dealt with their past, experienced forgiveness, are not tied to compulsive patterns of behaviour for their own sake and are dependent on the opinions and criticisms of others to dictate their future."
There are however, many Christians who believe in Christ but are halted in their walk with Him because they are uptight. They are still distressed by mistakes made in the past, unsettled by the criticisms of others and as a result that make no progress.
We can deal with this by saying well nobody perfect, why try or we go the other way and say; "I'm going to try hard and I'm going to do my best, live a holy life without blemish."
The outcome is either licence or perfectionism and neither works. Before long both leave us feeling trapped by failure and the future holds little hope.
But this is not life by the Spirit. If we live like this we are living as if Good Friday, Easter Morning and Pentecost never happened.
We were recently at Commissioning and that always brings back memories of our early days starting out as green Lieutenants. One of our treasured pieces of equipment that we relied upon to help us in our ministry was Carol’s imperial typewriter. I have never learned to touch type but even my slow tapping of the keys was better than writing out sermons in longhand. After about 4 years or so we were able to afford to buy an electric typewriter and it was great but it took some getting used to. In fact we still kept that old Imperial typewriter and it took me a while to handle the new machine. It went so fast and it seemed to take over and I couldn’t control it. Your brain somehow seemed to be half a beat behind your fingers.
Then when we got a word processor, we then couldn’t bear to get rid of the old electric typewriter for ages and still used it for a while. But then technology because to move so fast and we got used to embracing change. Some Christians are like that, comfortable in the familiar routine of their good deeds and church going, feeling secure in a system of earning spiritual brownie points. They don’t know how to handle something new.
Paul had to remind the Galatians of this in Galatians Chap 3 verse 3 and the J. B. Phillips translation says; 'Surely you can't be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances'.
We do not need to walk with the reins of self-improvement hampering us but we can be led along an unknown future pathway with the in-built power of the Spirit directing us, but we must trust him and let Him lead.
2. FREEDOM FOR PARALYSED WORKERS
It has been said that there are many willing people, those who are willing to work and those who are willing to let them.
1 Corinthians Chap 3 and verse 9 which says; 'we are labourers together with God so we are called to work for Him'. However there is a great error that many Christians fall into and that is to let their work for God become God. The one concern of a worker in God's business is to concentrate on God. Anything else will lead to them becoming burdened by all they have to do and the stressful workers eventually become paralysed workers.
The work will take their time and energy and will instead of being a channel through which God's life is poured it is a road away from His presence. The further we are from God's presence the more we will feel the burden of the responsibility, and the frustration of our inability to achieve what we set out for.
The scandal going on with the News of the World in these days has highlighted an issue that can happen in big organisations. The defence of the bosses’ at the top has been that people lower down the pecking order, when acting both immorally and illegally were acting independently of their management and their knowledge.
The worker for God who loses personal connection with the one they are working for will soon either become puffed up with their own self-importance and then fall flat on their face, or they will become so burdened they will become resentful and complain.
Where there is a constant touch with God there is freedom. There are some kinds of work where the employer is never seen but where the worker is not only required to see and work with the boss but also to live in. Workers for God are of course the second kind. They are required to "live in". Live in the realm of the Spirit. Here there is no sole responsibility on you for the work, only the responsibility of co-operating with God. The initiatives, campaigns and workload will be His.
3. FREEDOM TO PARALYSED WORSHIPPERS
Although a person can worship on their own they can do it more naturally and effectively with other people in the body of other believers.
The writer to the Hebrews exhorted Christians not to stay away from the services but to help the whole group continually offer up to God the sacrifice of praise that is the tribute of lips, which acknowledge His name.
I am convinced too that we really need the liberty of the Spirit to touch our worship and make us freer. Everyone is different and will want to express worship differently. Some have more extrovert personalities than others do and we must never get to the point where someone is condemned because they prefer to worship in a more conservative or more liberal way than us.
What concerns me is if we long to be more expressive but because of shyness or fear of what others might think, we are inhibited. One of the things that marks a Spirit filled Church is freedom in prayer, testimony and joyful praise.
Worship is a matter of will, whilst fear, embarrassment and shyness are emotions. Psalm 29 says; 'Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness' it doesn't add when you feel like it or when no one can see you.
Many people are ruled by their minds and their emotions and sometimes the stress of that is such that it affects the physical. But God's plan is that man should be ruled by His Spirit that is his Godly part for the Spirit of man relies not on a man's own resources but on God.
It is our will, which chooses which, will rule our life and it is our will, which chooses which, will rule our worship. Our body may be tired; it doesn't feel like praise, our emotions are fearful, our minds distracted by many things but the Spirit says; 'God requires me to worship Him' whether I feel like it or not.
Set my spirit free that I might worship Thee,
Set my spirit free that I might praise Thy name.
Let all bondage go and let deliverance flow,
Set my spirit free to worship Thee.
The Spirit will give us freedom but we choose whether we want it. If we do we will no longer be paralysed but mobile and usable. It will transform our daily walk with God, our work for God and our worship of God. Let’s allow the Spirit touch the paralysed limbs of our spiritual experience and give us liberty.
God bless
Carol
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