The Ride to Freedom
The painting above was inspired by a photograph I saw recently. In the photo, a focused rider spurred his horse on towards freedom from the flames. Either only for himself or to go get help.
Either way, it got me thinking about freedom. Although we have a choice in the matter, we often fall victim to many things we have been freed from, even though there is a better option. Don’t agree with me? Have you promised yourself this week “I will not think badly about myself, or this person".” or “I’m going to wake up early” “I’m going to workout every day this week”? Only to when you are unable to, you beat yourself up and start the cycle over again?
How do you get free from such patterns?
The people in the early church in Corinth fell prey to this issue as well. Paul had to remind them that “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
So I turned the concept over in my mind: Freedom comes embracing the Holy Spirit.
What does that even look like?
It means throwing out the garbage. “Don’t grieve the Holy spirit” Paul warns us in Ephesians 4:30. Earlier in that chapter, Paul goes through a list of things to throw out.
His list is comprehensive, such as sinning in our angry, unwholesome conversations, lying and gossiping, laziness, stealing and a few other things! But the beauty is, that in Galatians he also gives the list of things to embrace so we don’t think “Great, another long list of “don’ts!”
So get this, after we take the trash out of things that grieve God’s spirit, we get to redecorate our lives with the beautiful treasures that only the Holy Spirit gives. We get the freedom to enjoy the Spirit’s gifts.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
Paul even gets a little sassy and adds to the list, “Against such things there is no law.” Aka, there' are a lot of things you have freedom to do that are really good- the best even- and no one can really fault you for them!
After all he says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
So my friends, let’s take out the garbage of things that grieve God’s Spirit. When we do that and embrace the Spirit’s gifts, we will start to find the freedom from the dark and painful cycles that plague us.