Moving In Freeedom

Gal 5:1 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.

I grew up in a church and in a “movement” that taught that any difference in practice or theology from the “norm” meant that someone was in deep error and could in fact be in danger of going to hell! Writing these words now, I’m struck by just how harsh that sounds. In twenty years of ministry it never ceases to amaze me how people “use” heaven and hell to manipulate other into conformity!

A few years ago, after having experienced burnout in a long pastorate in Memphis, the Lord began to show me a new way to express my faith and worship! As I would learn – it didn’t mean giving up deep theological truth that I had come to know from scripture and solid teaching – rather it began to look like the passion and commitment and fire that drew me to ministry in the first place!

Today at Promise Church we are coming to know as a fellowship that there is incredible freedom in surrender to God and God’s purposes! At first, this may look or feel awkward to us. After all, surrender isn’t easy. It means letting go to ways of thinking and living that even though they didn’t work for us still made us feel some odd sense of “comfort.”

But as we go deeper into the “mystery” and the “deep things” of God we have a unique opportunity to experience the freedom we have always wanted but really were afraid to go after!

I’d like to encourage you. As someone who has travelled and IS travelling that pathway, I can assure you that there is incredible LIFE down the road. It doesn’t come easy. It doesn’t come without some pain and a lot of letting go. It doesn’t come without – as a famous Christian mystic once called it – a “dark night of the soul.”

But the wonderful thing about this journey is that beyond darkness of the night is the brightness of the new morning. And it’s the new morning that draws me forward toward! You are all in Susan’s and my prayers!!