Devotional Freedom and Nothing but Freedom

Freedom and Nothing but Freedom

Even though the writers of The Constitution of the United States weren’t all strictly followers of Jesus, they set up this nation “Under God.” They understood that creating a government from a lesser ideal would lead its people back to a ruling hierarchy and common-variety tyranny. No human ideology allows total freedom. Strong statement, but think about it. It’s the truth.

However, the idea that there’s a Christian nation, a Christian business, or a Christian structure of any kind is a misapplication. Jesus Christ didn’t lay His life down for an individual nation, business, structure, what have you; Jesus died for people, the people of the world.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16,17

A stretch of land, a business, a building—each of these things can be dedicated to the ideals of Christianity, and, each can just as easily be wiped from existence. A Christian is a living soul—any time, any place, any condition—whether in great company, or all alone.

Neither the idolatry and polytheism of eastern cultures, the humanism of European nations and her colonies, the superstition and despotism of third world classes, nor the tide of relativism beating on America, can stop the indwelling Spirit of Christ in the heart of a person with an active, living faith.

“Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.” C.S. Lewis

©Cami Tapley.

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To Everything a TimeTo Everything a Time

“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no delight in them.’” Ecclesiastes. 12:1

Time wasted is time lost. There’s a time to search, and a time to keep—but if we do neither when it’s time, can something be found if it’s never been looked for, or can something be kept after it’s already been thrown away? God equipped the heart of man to discern the appropriate time for all things. Ignoring our hearts will mean opportunities lost. No one can recover their youth when they’re old—and, no one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be unheard. God is a God of restoration. He forgives actions of ignorant or willful haste, and He sets errant and aimless feet upon level, straight pathways. The past is gone, and the future is God’s domain alone—the truth of real hope—so the present is ours to squander or to live by faith in. Make today one that isn’t bitter to recall when it becomes yesterday.

From The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis—Demon uncle, Screwtape, tutors his demon nephew, Wormwood, in how to corrupt a human:

“You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’ Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours…The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels*…When I speak of preserving this assumption in his mind, therefore, the last thing I mean you to do is to furnish him with arguments in its defense. There aren’t any.”

*personal property

The GiverThe Giver

“Do not reprove a scoffer lest he hate you, reprove a wise man and he will love you.” Proverbs 9:8

There are many things to be enjoyed in life, with or without acknowledging the Creator of it. However, think of two children….Two children are given an interesting toy—one knows who gave it, the other doesn’t. What happens when the children become unhappy or bored with the toy—and count on it, it’s going to happen—the child who knows the giver has more than just a toy, that child has relationship.

“Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.” —Blaise Pascal

“…the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fully given—nay, cannot even be imagined as given—in our present mode of spatiotemporal experience. This desire was, in the soul, as the Siege Perilous in Arthur’s castle, the chair in which only one could sit. And if nature makes nothing in vain, the One who sits in the chair must exist.” —From The Pilgrim’s Regress, by C.S. Lewis

A Very Personal CallA Very Personal Call

“And a ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: “Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.”‘ And he said, ‘All these I have kept from my youth.’ When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.” Luke 18:18-23

This man obeyed God’s general commands to a T, but he still had doubts, so he approached Christ. Unfortunately, to him, Jesus made it personal. When Christ gave him a literal—not general—command to sell all he had and follow Him, this man, who had initially sought Jesus out for answers, walked away. It didn’t make him one bit happy to do it, either.

Then there’s the story about the man Jesus freed from demon-possession. This time, the man asked if he could follow, but Jesus told him to go home.

While the rich guy was desperate to acquire tips to feel more in control of his own destiny, the man freed from demon-possession knew Jesus as his Savior, went home, and joyfully told everyone about Jesus; the will of God at work through an obedient heart.

God’s call on an individual life is always very personal. Misinterpreting God’s call is one problem, but defying it is another. Lightning may not strike, but a lightning strike would be a mercy compared to the emptiness of a soul who meets Jesus, but shrinks back.

“To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, one who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind. To have a master is this and nothing less—’One is your Master, even Christ’.” —Oswald Chambers

*Mark 5

©Cami Tapley.