A Free Man
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John 8:36
Freedom in Christ? Am I tuly a free man?
For forty years I lived as a slave and then when the begotten Son came to me, there was set before me an open door. Stepping forth from my prison, I approached the light. Yet decades of darkness make the light painful to my eyes. What does it mean to be free Lord? I thought I knew but though a man walk free from his cell, yet still the cell lives on in his mind.
Rom 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another:
I thought that I was in debt to no man, but as you search me with candles, you find disappointment in my soul. The woman that bore me and nourished me on the commandments of God and the Testimony of Jesus left her first estate. She took me from the Begotten Son and encouraged me to accept her new lover. When you came to me Lord Jesus and I realised she had forsaken you, I was washed with disappointment and frustration. Such disappointment binds the soul and extracts its price and makes one a debtor. Besides all this, anxiety washed over me when my mother put me down and wished me to walk on my own legs. No longer nestled in her arms as she sang to me in the night season to calm my soul. Must I grow to manhood? Why not stay by my mother's knee where safety lies in simple obedience without understanding. Follow the rules, not knowing why.
My disappointment and my anxiety held onto my soul and refused to let me go to my Father's house. As I read the Scripture I could see His home and His smile and His welcoming embrace, but my mother does not wish to come and my anxiety increases. "Please mother, come!" I plead. My anxiety and frustration stain my appeal. So I am rebuffed and disciplined
Lord! how can I be free? Anxiety to the left, frustration to the right. These chains prevent my free steps to manhood.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Then you sent me the faithful witness with the straight testimony. It dawns on my soul that I am a son of my mother; that I have her nature and am truly the same as she. Until I identify with her, I am never free to grow, for I blame her for things and feel myself superior. The voice of pride and blame is not the seed that grows but rather splits and divides.
What does it mean to be free Lord? When a child comes to manhood he is no longer under tutors and governors but God sends the free Spirit of His Son into his heart that he might have one master even Christ. Then all ye are brethren. When a child comes to manhood he does not forget his mother. He honours her as she deserves but serves His master as a free man and ruled by no other man's conscience.
True freedom comes when childish anxiety fades in the light and the seeds of blame are consumed in the joy of My Beloved. I will arise and go to my Father's house.
As the rising light of the moon, so freedom dawns in my darkened mind
