My wife is the Spiritual Life coordinator at the private, Christian school at which she teaches. One of her responsibilities is ensuring that activities are scheduled for the daily chapel time. She uses a variety of techniques including speakers, small groups, mentoring programs, prayer groups, and worship to ensure that a variety of programs are available for chapel. Well, she finally asked me to come speak at chapel...which I did today.
Anyway, I was really struggling with what to talk about. Her theme for the year has been "Break Out" using Galatians 5:1 as a theme verse. So, everything is about freedom in Christ. They had not really focused on theme in some time, so as the year is gearing down, she wants to bring the them back into focus and asked me to talk about the theme. This was particularly hard because this is a concept that I wrestle with. I don't know about you, but I have a tough time feeling free. I understand and get the idea of "freedom from the condemnation of sin and death." That makes sense to me.
But I sense that there is supposed to be more to freedom in Christ than just not being held accountable for sin. There is more to being free in Christ than having freedom from the debt of sin.
There is in scripture this idea that following Christ brings a freedom to me in the way I am to live my life. Jesus himself encouraged those who are weary to come to him and take his yoke upon them. Now, while to us a yoke is an apparatus used to control a cow or an oxen, to Jews, it specifically referred to a set of teachings or doctrines taught by the rabbis. When Jesus tells the people who are weary carrying a heavy load of "right doctrine" to come and take on his teachings, he promises freedom from those heavy loads.
However, I don't see the freedom. Christ's yoke does not appear to be light and easy to me. His teaching of "love your neighbor as yourself" is hard. Being concerned for the widows, orphans, the criminals, and the homeless doesn't seem easy to me. To daily die to myself and put others ahead of me is not a simple task. However, it is in those things, those teachings of Christ that I am to find freedom.
Maybe it is because my perception of freedom is skewed. Maybe my definition of liberty has been too clouded by being raised as an American. As Americans, we have a unique perspective on freedom. To us freedom is a concept that includes free will, self-determination, and the ability to pursue our own destiny. However, those are not the things that Christ gives us when we choose to follow him. After deciding to be a Christian and offering allegiance only to him, we have no free will. His will is my will. I am no longer allowed to act in my own best interest, but have to act in His best interest. I am no longer able to pursue my goals and my dreams, but am to sacrifice those to achieve His goals and His dreams. This is not freedom...this is not liberty. This is giving up one master for another. Or is it?
I'm not sure. I get lost in my thoughts right here. Where do I go from here? Where do I find the freedom promised? I struggled and wrestled with these thoughts. I know that these are some of the same feelings the kids have...but I don't know if I have the appropriate answers to these unsettling feelings. I need more time to meditate on this, more time to work through scripture, and more time to listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance. I needed more time than I had to prepare.
So, I changed courses and went another route. Instead, I dredged up a communion thought that I used some time ago. I used the slideshow from that communion thought, but had a different introduction.
Basically, I started by talking about the importance of identity and how we work so hard to project a certain image of ourselves to others. When people ask, "Who is Randy?" There is an answer I expect to hear. Jesus did this himself when he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" He was asking them, what image do I project to people? How do others view my identity? I then asked the kids to answer that question, who do they think Jesus is. After they pondered that for 20 to 30 seconds, I showed a video of some of the responses to that question in a "man on the street" type format.
After the video we looked at the four different views people have Jesus and why three of them are incomplete. They are that 1) Jesus was a good man, 2) Jesus was a good teacher/philosopher, 3) Jesus was a prophet, and 4) Jesus was God. I ended by talking about how three of those don't offer freedom. I came back to that it is important to see the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, as God because that is the only one that can offer freedom. I talked a little bit about the origins of "I AM THAT I AM" and how Jesus used this reserved phrase to identify himself. This is the image that he was trying to project.
We ended by review the montage of scriptures and the slideshow. After that, I prayed and was done. Anyway, there is some thoughts for you. Now, I need to wrestle with the un-finished thought above...get my mind around it...figure it out...communicate it.
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