What is freedom?

John Piper said, in one of his podcast sermons, that the definition of freedom is 

The desire

The ability

And the opportunity 

To do what will make you happy in a 1000 years 

To desire and be able and have the opportunity to do what will make you happy

In a 1000 years.

Sounds lofty. 

In other words, freedom is doing what will make you happy for longer than a lifetime.  It is doing what will bring you to arrival at the highest, deepest, widest, lengthiest place of incredible joy. 

Freedom will leave you with no regrets--Forever. 

It's not freedom if you don't want to do it (no desire)

It's not freedom if you can't do it (no ability)

And it's not freedom if 

you have no occasion to do 

what you desire and are even able to do (no opportunity).

All three must be present. 

I want to do it, I can do it and I am doing it!  <---is that you?  Have you 

reached your final destination of "freedom?" (And Jesus has not returned yet so if you think you've reached your final destination, it can't be Jesus because He hasn't returned yet.). The freedom believers have is a freedom based on faith not feeling.  Feelings serve their purpose too, and it is my aim to redirect the redeemed purpose and function of our feelings.  Feelings get such a bad rep in both the secular and the Christian spheres.  Yet...how could something so prevalent and invading and powerful ...be tossed aside?  Are feelings sin?  No.  It does not say anywhere in scripture that if you feel you are sinning.  

We made that up because feeling is scary.  But in Christ we need not even fear our feelings!  So what are they?   

---------------

I feel unworthy or hesitant about the confidence I should have in Christ because of how real it feels that I am 

Failing

Lazy

Lonely

Behind

Dependent 

Messing up

Afraid 

These feelings taint my freedom, and rather make me feel trapped or stuck.

These beliefs in my heart 

are there in the midst of 

the chaos of my mind (when I desire- I do not do)

and my actions (when I can do- I do not desire)

and my planning.  (When I desire and can do- I do not have an opportunity)

Where is the Holy Spirit when I'm feeling these things?  

What is God doing with these things?  

What would it mean to not have one of these feelings anymore?  

How might God be sanctifying me through these feelings?  

How might God be using these feelings in me for good?

What must I be doing to cooperate with the Spirit?  

What is the truth?  

And how can I begin to believe it more? 

How can I begin to feel what I believe more? 

Or are the two always in opposition  

"For the message of the cross 

is foolishness 

to those who are perishing, 

-----why?

but it is God’s power 

to us who are being saved."

-----how?

For it is written: 

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 

and I will set aside the understanding of the experts. 

Where is the philosopher? 

Where is the scholar? 

Where is the debater of this age? 

Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? 

For since, 

in God’s wisdom, 

the world did not know God through wisdom, 

God was pleased to save 

those who believe 

through the foolishness 

of the message preached. 

* We are saved THROUGH THE FOOLISHNESS of the message.  Meaning if we feel that it is foolish, that's exactly where we should be!  God made it to feel very foolish.  If it does not FEEL foolish, I might be concerned for what message you heard and believe in your heart?  It is not foolishness to believers, but it has a feeling of foolishness to it.  For others it probably doesn't feel like anything because they don't believe the message, it does not touch upon their feelings.  They are so far removed from the message that it IS FOOLISHNESS to them.  Literally, the message is foolish to them because it has nothing to do with them.  They don't need it- it's trash to them.  It means nothing to them.  And nothingness carries no feelings. 

For the Jews ask for signs 

and the Greeks seek wisdom, 

but 

we preach Christ crucified, 

a stumbling block to the Jews 

and foolishness to the Gentiles. 

Yet to those who are called, 

both Jews and Greeks, 

Christ is God’s power 

and God’s wisdom, 

because God’s foolishness 

is wiser than human wisdom, 

and God’s weakness 

is stronger than human strength. 

-1 Corinthians 1:18-25 HCSB

Brothers, consider your calling: 

*...think about what you're doing.

Where are you going today?

What are you working towards?

What are you trying to accomplish?

What is motivating you?

What are your genuine desires?

What are you actually able to do?

What opportunities are before you right now?

Where are you thinking you are supposed to be?

What do you think you should be doing?

What are you actually doing?*

Not many are wise from a human perspective, 

---so some are wise from a human perspective, and those that we think are wise we may try to copy.  Do you want to be like them, have their life, and then you'll be happy?  Maybe, but such thinking is futile because you are NOT THEM.  You are you, and that is the only starting place you can be.  

If you're not considered wise in the eyes of most people, that's because NOT MANY are!  Meaning God made it so that not many would be considered wise in human eyes- why? Because God was pleased to save those who would believe THROUGH FOOLISHNESS, to safeguard people from the delusion of thinking or feeling that they knew something that helped themselves be better!  It was to show them the way THROUGH FOOLISHNESS.  We know nothing.  If you're not of this grouping then discontinue reading.  If you have it all together and need nothing more than this will only waste your time.  

Believing and feeling are two very different things. 

You can feel you know nothing and still believe (faith), 

Or you can feel you know something and  believe (knowledge). 

-----

not many powerful, 

(Are you weak?  So am I)

not many of noble birth. 

(Are you not a somebody? Neither am I)

*God has made it this way for MANY of us, and instead of fighting to change what God has made (Ecc. 7:13) what can we consider to be the purpose behind why many of us find that we are weak, nobodies, and dumbfounded?  

Is considering another reason even an option for us in a world that highly classifies strong, smart, renown people as ....right and good?  

The best.  The goal.  Achieved.  Accomplished.  Winners-- we see these values and they look right and good, they feel right and good as goals.  However, they do not satiate our lives.  We move on, often with frustration or an gnawing need, to the next chasing after of useless goals because it feels so good and right to chase.  It feels hopeful.  

We chase and chase and chase and chase, trying to take off our sense of weakness, sense of being a nobody, and sense of confusion.  

God has said that He MADE IT this way!

Can we accept what God has made?  

If not, can we make straight what God has made crooked? 

"Consider the work of God, for who can straighten out what He has made crooked."

-Ecc. 7:13

The Spirit prays and intercedes for me here and gently says "stop trying to change what God has made, it will ABSOLUTELY NEVER happen- it cannot change, it will not change, and chasing after this hope is going to waste a lot of your life."  

And when I am relentlessly given this revelation of my weakness, being a nobody, and left utterly dumbfounded, I am left asking why.  Why God?  (At this point it's hard to call God my loving Father, because it feels so cruel to be blocked from what appears to be so good and right.)

Why do You show me this?  

Why have You made it this way--this difficult to cope with way? 

What are doing that is for me? 

Where is love in this crippling state of mind?

Why have you crippled me?! 

Why can't I be strong?!

Why can't I be a somebody?!

Why can't I be validated of my worth by others who know me?! 

Why can't I feel put together and accomplished?

...why must I be so needy? 

In this pocket of reality and heightened awareness all I can do to stop chasing is ask why.  In a slumped kind of way.  Too tired to even get angry.  Just stopped by God.  God has made it this way, and I know enough at this point that if He has made it this way there is no fighting God. 

Instead, 

God has chosen what is foolish in the world 

to shame the wise, 

and 

God has chosen what is weak in the world 

to shame the strong. 

God has chosen what is insignificant 

and despised in the world — 

what is viewed as nothing — 

to bring to nothing 

what is viewed as something, 

so that no one can boast in His presence.

*not even the ones we view as wise in our eyes--another reason we shouldn't waste our time comparing or desiring to have someone else's life. 

But it is from Him 

that you are in Christ Jesus, 

who became God-given wisdom 

for us — our righteousness, sanctification, 

and redemption, 

in order that, 

as it is written: 

The one who boasts 

must boast in the Lord. 

-1 Corinthians 1:26-31 HCSB

If the only way to freedom is by boasting in the Lord, then for someone who feels so weak, useless and dumbfounded as a person, this is very good news to me. 

To know that it's not up to me, lest I find grounds for being confident (boasting) in what I did, but all must up to God.  

I do not desire

I am not able

And I have no opportunity to do what will make me happy for a 1000 years. 

God desires,

God is able, and God took the opportunity to do what will make me happy for a 1000 years:  he died for me.  

I'm free because of God first using His freedom to set me free. 

Feelings are free too then.  God uses my feelings to be empowered by His freedom.  His wisdom.  His strength.  His royalty.  His love.  

We are free to feel when our feelings are directed at God.  He gave us these feelings so He will take responsibility for them, and use them for our joy.  

What is God telling you today through your feelings? 

For me it was to redirect the source of power that enables me to walk in freedom.  Running low on freedom usually produces heaps of bad feelings in me that are there to help me redirect my steps back toward God, not to condemn me.  I wander off unintentionally, because I'm needy of God's directing me again and again.  And that's the way it is made to be. 

Allow yourself to feel what is real in you, and let the feelings gently expose your needs.  Feelings do not define you, if they did we would all be making false implications about God's identity, if we professed to be in Christ.  

Your feelings don't define you, they expose you.  Allow your feelings to prove to you that you need God, and grow in deeper desire for Him, because you need Him.  

Jmegrey.