Pharisiacal Freedom

I am a detail person...well, usually.  If I were reading this blog I would have noticed the last post was posted at 3:30 am.  I would have speculated that such a post was predictable at 3:30 AM.  We just do not cope well with much of anything when we are tired or are without much sleep.

That said, it is what it is.  Some things/seasons in life keep us up at night or wake us up.  I am in such a season.  Once again, I find myself beginning a post that has no apparent focus but in God's goodness to me I find that if I just keep writing He produces something in me and for me.  It still amazes me.  That is why I am so thankful to be back here.  I am excited to see what He will show me... how something as simple (or silly) as blogging, is a part of how He renews my mind and thereby transforms me.  It's His promise.  Wow.  Give me a minute... I am processing this even in this moment...

I have had to fight this performance/religious based "thing" in me most of my life... this pharisaical mindset.  Could it be that the transformation that I so desperately strive and long for through prayer and study, may actually come to pass by way of the gifts and desires that He has already placed in me?  Don't get me wrong. Prayer- good. Reading the Word-good.  But what if, in my religious pursuit, I am left empty? What if Holy Spirit is working within my natural desire to speak and to write and I don't have to "do" anything except that which comes naturally?  Even as I am typing these thoughts and words there is a war in my soul... 

Voice 1: "It can't possibly be THAT easy... of course, you have to DO something.  You must be disciplined and focused."

Voice 2: "Maybe it is THAT easy... that natural.  Wouldn't that feel like freedom?"

I posted on Twitter something I heard Kris Valloton (Bethel Church, Redding, California) say in a message he shared.  The Law of Liberty -the Bible/Holy Spirit mixer- doesn't give me freedom to do what I want to do, it allows me to do what love requires.  What if love requires me to do just that- love.  Maybe love (or a dimension of love) looks like doing what comes naturally to me, allowing Him to work and move through me.  Am I making any sense?  If what I understand in this moment, while maybe not clearly articulating, is true, then I may on the verge of experiencing an incredible new level of freedom. Didn't Jesus come for freedom?  It is for freedom that He set me free... free to be ME in Him and through Him... exclusively Steffanie... overtly Steffanie... (I am sensing you’re getting a little nervous). 

I SO long for it to be OK to not be structured or organized or HAVE to have every i dotted and every t crossed... if I am growing in the things of Christ, if I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind, does it really matter "how" that is being done?

Romans 8 says there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  I see where I have lived in a state of all that I am NOT- condemnation. No wonder there is no freedom or change... it's not of God! 

Verse 4 of that same chapter says "He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished by us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit."  Could it be that my sinful nature has been following the law?  Still?? 

What if following the Spirit actually can feel natural, easy? Verse 9 "But you are NOT controlled by your sinful nature.  You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you...{on to verse 12}...you have NO obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do."  For real?? 

My sinful nature is pharisaical... it wants to follow the law.  Verse 6 "If your sinful nature {to follow the law} controls your mind {you should do this and you shouldn't do that}, there is death.  But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace."  Whoa!  No wonder I always feel like I am dying...maybe because I am!  I want life and peace...duh (sorry, little old school).

No one else, or anything else,  gets to decide or dictate what my life needs to look like.  I can walk in the freedom of how Jesus made me, doing the things that He has gifted me to do, (even things I enjoy doing) and in it discover the freedom of a natural relationship with Him. HE does the transforming in that place of freedom. Maybe He transforms me, not when I am striving to be transformed, but when I am simply being and doing ME in the manner in which He created me... overtly me.  This Beloved, blows me away. 

I GET to do what love requires... that's it...it always comes back to Love.