spiritual freedom

Defensive Wounds

Posted on by Betsy

Are you intrigued by forensic science? I am. I blame Brit Box and years of too much CSI for my fascination about forensic science. My affection for writer Patricia Cornwell feeds this addiction as well. This branch of investigative police work is amazing in its ability to solve crimes, reveal the truth, and allow the dead to speak for themselves. Body temperature, wound size and angles, and something called defensive wounds tell the tale of how the decedent met their end in no uncertain terms. Defensive wounds are injuries the person sustained while defending themself against the attacker. They can provided needed evidence such as skin under the fingernails that can reveal the DNA of the assailant and prove that the incident wasn’t just an accident. Defensive wounds speak the truth.

I thought about defensive wounds the other day during a counseling session with a church member. She sat on the couch and described many years of painful interactions with a family member whom she deeply loves. They have both been hurt by other family members, and it was obvious that the one that she loves has turned that hurt into attacks against my church member. The reason is clear: This woman is a safe place for all of her loved one’s pain. Unconditional love can come at that cost. The wounds she carries after years of this are a type of defensive wound. She is scarred by multiple attacks and bruised by her attempts to continually fight off and defend herself against her beloved attacker.

You know, Jesus carried defensive wounds as well. He was defending you.

Isaiah 53 (New International Version)
Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah’s prophecy of a saving messiah was fulfilled on the cross. There, Jesus willingly suffered the piercing of his hands and feet and the gouging of his side by a sword for our sins. He suffered and suffocated so that the pain of sin that we bear might be borne on him so that we might live. Our iniquity left its mark, and his defensive wounds on our behalf bought us eternal life. That’s what unconditional love can do.

At the end of our counseling session we both felt that by listening to and acknowledging the pain that has prompted all the attacks, the loved one may eventually find peace. Rather than continuing to defend and explain herself, my church member will try with God’s help to become a sanctuary for pain rather than its target. Knowing that Jesus walked that lonely valley before gives her strength.

How about you? Are you suffering with your own defensive wounds? It is time to simply listen rather than justify and explain? Have you borne the iniquity of your situation long enough?

Jesus understands. May the peace he bought on the cross for you be yours today and always.

Fresh Air by Kathy Weeks

Preaching in Prison

Posted on by Betsy

For a part of my ministry, I was a regular visitor in the local jails in the towns where I have served. It began when a young church member shot a friend while playing “Russian Roulette” with a gun he had just obtained that week. Spurred on by a television show, the three friends thought it would be a fun game until my church member “playfully” shot his friend in the chest, killing him. My weekly visits with him expanded to seeing other prisoners, as Christian guards would announce “clergy visits for all” when I arrived. I heard many, many stories of regret, remorse, arrogance, evil, and bad decisions. I have a friend in the town where I lived who regularly visits young women in prison. This neglected population of the children of God need people who will come and share the love of Jesus with them.

And it is what Jesus did.

In our Scripture this morning, Peter discussed Christ’s suffering on account of all of our sins. If you look at the palms of your hands this morning and can’t make out the nail prints, be glad. Christ willingly took those scars upon his unblemished hands so that you didn’t have to. Charles Spurgeon said it beautifully: “The hem of grief’s garment is all you ever touch, but Christ wore it as his daily robe.”

Jesus went to preach to the spirits in prison so that they might understand God’s message of judgment and his triumph of good over evil through the death and resurrection of Christ:

1 Peter 3(Common English Bible)

18 Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. 19 And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. 20 In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water. 21 Baptism is like that. It saves you now—not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, he rules over all angels, authorities, and powers.

These particular prisoners were understood as the demons (the sons of God who were now the fallen angels) that are referenced in Genesis 6:1-2:

6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

So many of us live in prisons today. We live in the prison of a past we can’t shake off. We live in prisons of addiction and substance abuse. We live in a toxic relationship prison. We live in the prison of regret. We live in the prison of sin and bad choices.

Christ died so that you could be free. You don’t have to live in a prison of your own making! Your baptism provides you with the Holy Spirit power to live in your good conscience toward God, ever seeking his perfect will for your life and following his guidance and direction.

Are you imprisoned by your choices? As Peter pointed out, Christ did all of this to bring you into the presence of God. Let Christ set you free.

Freedom by Michelle Robertson

A Life of Freedom

Posted on by Betsy

I have a strange way of memorizing things. When I took my first Bible introductory survey course in seminary, I developed little tricks for remembering the themes of all 66 books. For Hebrews, I created the phrase “HE (is) B(ett)ER (than the)RESt, which roughly spells out HEBREWS, if you misspell it. Hebrews describes the superiority of Christ over angels, Old Testament prophets, kings, etc. So, he is better than the rest!

For Galatians, I tapped into my love of science fiction. One of my favorites is Battlestar Galactica. What was their mission? To free humanity from the evil robot Cylons. Thus, Galatians is about freedom.

Laugh if you will, but I got an A!

Let us see what Galatians has to say about freedom as we celebrate freedom today:

Galatians 5:16-18 (The Message)

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

The writer of Hebrews contrasts freedom with self-interest. “There is a root of self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit.” That is pure genius. Think of all the places in life where people imprison themselves. These situations can be the result of some selfish, self-absorbed, self-interested behavior. Addictions are triggered when we indulge in a dangerous behavior. Adultery starts with the need for the adrenaline rush of someone’s flattering interest. Family disputes happen when one family member feels entitled to what the all the rest should receive. Arguments ensue when we think our opinion is more valuable, right, or superior to someone else’s opinion. Betrayals happen when self-absorbed desires assert themselves over the common good. Basically, nothing good comes from selfishness.

In contrast, Christ offers a life of freedom. He came to set us free from sin, from death, and mostly from ourselves. We are encouraged to pursue a life lived fully in the Spirit, which offers affection for others, exuberance for life, and SERENITY.

22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

So, before the parade-watching, flag-waving, fireworks extravaganza begins, ask yourself this: where do I lack freedom in my life? I bet that if you trace that back, there will be selfishness at the root … either yours, or somebody else’s.

The cross and the flag are both symbols of our freedom. As we lift one high today, let us lift the other higher.

Happy Fourth by Michelle Robertson

Freedom

Posted on by Betsy

How would you define freedom? Is it a political thing? Does it have the force of law? Is it a state of mind? Is it defined entirely by the country you inhabit, or the company you keep?

Paul talks about freedom almost exclusively in terms of spiritual matters. For him, freedom is the end result of salvation and forgiveness as we leave the enslavement of sin and death and live under the openness of God’s grace.

Romans 6 (The Message)

15-18 So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

OK, hang on a minute, Paul. Do you mean to say that we have just traded one master (sin) for another master (God) who gives commands?

Read on…

19 I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

God’s freedom comes with some conditions. For one, you will be healed. And your life will be expansive in holiness. I don’t know about you, but I think I can live with that.

20-21 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

22-23 But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

A whole, healed, put-together life is the freedom-gift God offers. His gift is real life, eternal life, given to all who choose to receive his offer of salvation and believe in him.

Where is God offering you freedom from sin right now? Are you ignoring him? Living a life under the tyranny of sin results in less and less freedom. You may think you are living life on your own terms, but the end result is nothing you can be proud of. It’s a dead end.

Choose true freedom.

Flowing Freedom By Michelle Robertson