Freedom

What exactly is freedom? Where do we find it? How do we get it? How do we lose it? I think I can speak for everyone in say that we want it... but the question still remains how do we get it.  That answer is simple yet complicated. We get it from God but not the way most people try to get it. I know most are thinking it ain't so complicated we just accept Jesus as our Lord and savior and boom we have it it. So then what you be a good little christian and follow the rules, go to church and try to live a good life that would honor God. If this is what you think I think you missed the point. What God wants is our love... Deut 6:5 says to LOVE GOD with your everything. Once we give up and surrender to him then we truly find freedom. It is not about keeping rules, going to church or anything else except Loving God... and when you love God you want more of him constantly. Think about the first time you fell in love with someone. You wanted to be with them every chance you got... you would do anything in the world for them... you would give them everything you could... THAT IS WHAT IT SHOULD BE LIKE!!! If you surrender to that kind of love and truly experience GOD then you will find freedom. 

What's Love Got To Do With It

What's love got to do with it? Everything... Are you struggling in your walk with God? Not getting into the word or praying? Failing in your marriage? Wrapped up in your own exists? 

Love has everything to do with it and your Love priorities even more to do with it. Are flesh is naturally selfish and wants nothing more then to gratify itself but when you come into a relationship with God you are to die to yourself and become a new creation. This isn't something that happens instantly... it is a process that takes time and EFFORT. Love is a choice. We decide what we want to make priority and cultivate. When we get our love priorities straight thing start to come together like God designed it. So what should our love priorities look like?

1. God - Luke 10:27 He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind..." God has to be our number one priority. This means we must cultivate a relationship with him. How do you do that? Well, you do it just like any other relationship... spend time with him. If you put it in true perspective of what he sacrificed for us then this is very little to ask. Until I was a parent this was hard to contemplate, but imagine having to choose between the person you care the most for and someone who has rejected you. Whoever you choose will be saved from unbearable pain and the other will suffer for the sake of the one you choose. God chose us over his one and only son so that we may have forgiveness for our sin. That is the ultimate display of love and 1 John 4:19 says "We love because he first loved us." There more we cultivate this love the more we want to and our other priorities start to fall in place.

2. Spouse - I know most of the parents out there are probably think NO my children come first... not according to God's design. The bible is real clear about this. I have said every excuse in the book about why this isn't important. I can show you verse after verse to back up how God feels about this

(Mark 10:9, Gen 2:24, Prov 18:22, Eph 5:25, Deu 24:5, Matt 19:4-6). These are just a few. When you put this in perspective this is your children's example of their future family life, so you better make it count. 

3. Children - This is where you become a missionary. No you don't have to go of to some third world country to share God... It starts right here. Prov 22:6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. We do this by setting God as #1 and Spouse as #2. If we are constantly talking about God and going to church but we treat our spouse as meaningless what kind of example is this? Who would want that kind of love? The same goes if we treat our children as meaningless.

4. Everyone Else - I know many of you are going "What about me?" This is probably the hardest of all of them. Think about God and what he sacrificed for you... well he made the exact same sacrifice for them also. I know many of you are thinking but I act better then they do... Isaiah 64:6 "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." It doesn't say his acts or their acts... it say ALL acts are filthy rags so that includes yours. We must remember the bondage we were in before our relationship with God and love these people where they are because God loved us where we were. 

5. Yourself - You come in last place. I am not saying don't take care of yourself or be down on yourself. As we grow in our relationship with God our priorities become his and our thought more like his. He has a plan and a purpose for you, plans to prosper you and not forsake you, Jer 29:11. When we shift our worldview to align with God things come into perspective and the blessings of God will be poured out onto our lives.

These are not easy priorities to set we must choose to cultivate the relationships that are important to us. We must live intentionally in order to let God do what he needs to in our lives. So what does love got to do with it... EVERYTHING.