FREEDOM
God and us
God gave us free will. He does not force Himself into our lives, He stand and
knocks (Rev. 3:20). He gives us a choice to open the door and let Him in or to
keep Him on the outside. He treats us with respect and lets us choose. This freedom means that we are free to be good and we are
also free to be bad. This is what has made evil possible.
Why would God give us such freedom? Because even though freedom makes evil possible it is also
the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. Freedom means that we have a choice
Gal. 5:1 (NIV) 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.
John 8:36 (NIV)
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
The opposite of freedom is control, God does not control us. He sets guidelines and consequences in His Word and He lets
us choose to obey them or not.
Our
Relationships
God does not control us and therefore we are not to be
controlled by others or control others. Nagging
is a form of control – when we nag and finally get our way we don’t feel happy
or loved because the fruit of controlling others is not love. Emotional manipulation is also a form
of control. Love can only exist where there is freedom and where a person has a choice to say yes or no and
freely chooses yes freely. That’s why God gives us freedom even though He knows that
some people will choose evil or disobedience – it’s because He desires real
love which means giving us freedom. If we want to treat others, including our spouse, the way
God treats us then we must give up controlling others because control is the
opposite of freedom. We should be like God and set guidelines and consequences
and give people freedom to choose
And if they choose contrary to what we would like them to
choose then we take responsibility for how that makes us feel. That brings us to our next characteristic – responsibility
RESPONSIBILITY
Our relationship with God is a two way street. God is responsible for part of it and we are responsible for
the other part. We both have responsibilities.
God and Us
God’s
Responsibility: God plays a part
in growing us in our Christian maturity, one way that God does this is through disciplining
us
Heb. 12:5b-6 (NIV) “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose
heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the
one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.
Another way God works to grow us is through the Holy
Spirit who works within us to change us and mature us, giving us greater
holiness
2 Thess. 2:13 (NIV) 13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers
and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through
the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the
truth.
It is the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit of the
Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).
My
Responsibility: To strive to obey God and take steps that will increase
our growth. We pray and ask for Him to grow us. We obey! Obedience is
the way in which we work out our salvation
Phil. 2:12 (NIV) 12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have
always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my
absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
When we obey we work out the further realization of the
benefits of salvation in our Christian lives. We can’t expect God to magically make us stronger
and more holy and make us into mature Christians if we are not willing to obey
His Word.
1 Tim. 5:22 (NASB) …keep yourself
free from sin
We are to abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4:3). We are to shun immorality (1 Cor. 6:18), cleanse ourselves
from defilement (2 Cor. 7:1), make every effort to grow in character traits
that accord with godliness (2 Peter 1:5). Christians are to continually build up patterns and habits
of holiness. There are no short-cuts by which we can grow but simply we
must repeatedly give ourselves to:
- Bible reading and mediation (Ps. 1:2; Matt. 4:4, John 17:17)
- Prayer (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6)
- Worship (Eph. 5:18-20)
- Witnessing (Matt. 28:19-20)
- Christian fellowship (Heb. 10:24-25)
- Self-discipline or self-control (Gal. 5:23; Titus 1:8)
The same idea is true in our relationships. There are some things I am responsible for
and some things I am not responsible for.
KEY POINT: I am responsible for my feelings, my attitudes,
my behaviours, my choices, setting limits, using my talents, my thoughts, my
desires, my likes and dislikes and my values
Rom. 14:12 (NIV) … each of us will give an account of
ourselves to God.
God will not accept excuses such as, “he made me feel that
way”, or “she drove me to it”
ILLUSTRATION: If I struggle with anger I must take
responsibility for my anger and not blame it on someone else. Someone may have provoked my anger but I are
responsible for my response to that person
ILLUSTRATION: If in
my desire to pursue holiness I decide not to watch a particular movie and this
makes my husband mad – his anger is his responsibility, not mine. I don’t have to feel bad about that.
Many women actually struggle with taking too much
responsibility for their husband’s life
ILLUSTRATION: You are
not responsible for your husband overeating, he is responsible for what he eats,
you are not responsible for your husband’s spiritual growth but you are
responsible to pray for him
When our husbands are going through a tough time we are
responsible to care for them but ultimately they are responsible for their own
feelings, attitudes, behaviours, etc.
KEY POINT: In order to take better responsibility for our
feelings, attitudes and behaviours we may need to limit the effect that evil
choices of other people make can have on our lives
ILLUSTRATION: if
hanging around a particular person causes me to become depressed, critical,
judgmental, angry, or if I slip into gossip around a particular person then I
must LIMIT my exposure to that person
Yet we can take this point one step further
KEY POINT: We must refuse to rescue or enable sinful
behaviour or immature behaviour, this includes our husbands.
We have a responsibility to set limits on our husbands
destructive acts or attitudes
EXAMPLE: if your
husband has a gambling problem then you need to set limits such as cancelling
his credit cards, separating your joint accounts and insisting that he get
professional help – to force him to take responsibility for his problem. The same is true for pornography, drugs or
violence.
LOVE
God and Us
God, at His very
essence, is love
I John 4:16 (NIV) … God is love. Whoever
lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
God does love and He is
love.
God loves us
unconditionally
God’s love is
self-giving and sacrificial
His love is selfless
God’s love includes
giving us choice to love or not to love him back (freedom) and it requires us
to take responsibility. These three
things all go hand in hand – freedom, responsibility, love!
This is the kind of love
that God calls us to emulate
Our
Relationships
The greatest commandment
centers around love
Matt. 22:37, 39 (NIV) Jesus
replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind.’ And the second is like it:
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
God created and designed
us to love Him and to love each other.
Love is a central
element in relationships such as marriage and family as well as friendships
KEY POINT: A good working
definition of love is that it is a stance that promotes the welfare of the
other
Love is content to know
that the other person has benefited in some way by its efforts. It transcends
our desires for ourselves, and desires instead what is best for the other
person. When we really love, we
give up selfishness and empathetically enter the world of the other person’s
needs, hurts and dreams. I talk to many women who
mention to me that the love in their marriage seems to be lost, they had all
sorts of love while they were dating and when they were first married but the
love just seems to be gone. I have news for them –
those feelings when you were dating and first married were probably not really
love, they were probably a combination of hormones and lust and selfishness. There may have been
romance, there may have been all sorts of emotional feelings of being attracted
so someone and having that person attracted to you but in reality when we were
dating and first married when we said the words “I love you” we were actually
saying “there is something about you that gratifies me in some way and I like
it”. See how selfish that is!
God wants us to move
past selfish love in our relationships and move towards real love, the kind of
love that He has for us. This means forgiving
those who have hurt us. This means that we stop
judging and being critical of others since that is not love. Neither is enabling
others to continue in sinful lifestyles, as we talked about before. God’s love is
self-giving and sacrificial but it also does not control – remember, love means
freedom and responsibility.
Prayer and Reflection Questions:
- Thanksgiving: Spend some time thanking God for His goodness in your life. Thank Him for His unfailing love that goes on forever. Thank Him that He is faithful.
- Listening Prayer: Jesus, speak to me about how I treat others.
- Listening Prayer: How can I grow healthy relationships with my family?
- Listening Prayer: Controlling others is not love. Ask the Lord to remind you of a time when you tried to control someone else. Confess this as sin, and then invite Jesus to show you how you can love this person with His love.
- Listening Prayer: In a relationship both people have responsibilities. How can I grow in taking responsibility for what I am responsible for and balance that with avoiding taking responsibility of what the other person needs to take ownership of, while showing care?
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