Jesus has come to give all of humanity freedom. As Americans, don't we already have freedom? In fact, doesn't the new testament of the Bible teach things like; being a slave to Christ, to serve God, and to die to ourselves? Once again it seems like Jesus has taught us a whole different way to understand something, freedom.
In his masterful work, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to think like Jesus, Brennan Manning writes these words on the subject.
"Often our preoccupation with the three most basic human desires - security, pleasure, and power - is the cloak that covers transparency. The endless struggle for enough money, good feelings, and prestige yields a rich harvest of worry, frustration, suspicion, anger, jealousy, anxiety, fear, and resentment. These powerful, emotionally-backed desires cause 99 percent of the self-inflicted and unnecessary suffering in our lives."
I think it's simple. If I make decisions like most people I will make the decision based on my desire for security, pleasure, and power. By doing that I will find my life as a huge mess and I will not want to live it. I will have to live it because it's the only one I have. If I lose my life in Christ I will make decisions through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and find my life as a tremendous blessing and a wonderful creation. A creation not made by me, but by God. With my freedom, I chose to stop letting the world influence me and I chose to be influenced only by the God of all love. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit has led me to ever-increasing freedom from worry, self-doubt, and all the other things that used to dominate my life.
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