The battle for freedom
"The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." John 10:10

There it is. Simple. The battle lines are drawn. The thief is out there - he has been there long before Adam & Eve. After he tried to overthrow Heaven, he was thrown out with 1/3 of the angels who joined him in his evil plot. Ever since, he has prowled around looking for someone to destroy and he first reappears in the Garden as a serpent whispering to Eve, "You don't need God, you need knowledge."

Even today, he is there (perhaps more so today than ever) - looking, prowling, sneaking...hunting. As I do all I can to sneak into my deer stand and position myself just right for the right shot at the right moment to take the prized buck down and out, so too the thief sits in waiting. He sits hidden, camouflaged, covered over...waiting. Don't kid yourself men, he sits and waits for the right chance to take you out. Be it another woman, alcohol, power, self-accomplishment, greed, you name it - all weapons are fair game to him.

And yet, there is Christ who came to give us life. LIFE. And importantly to give us life that we "may live it abundantly". What this says to me is He wants me to live life with a passion that draws others in. So often, we think coming to God means installing a bunch of rules on our life - "don't do __________". The church has done a disservice in this regard by encouraging a bunch of "don'ts" on man and by encouraging men to "be nice".

We wonder why the men are checked out in church and the reason is pretty simple, Jesus came to give us life and give it to us to live abundantly with great passion and enthusiasm and the institution has tried to smother that. John Eldredge visited a mega-church in Texas a few years back to do a seminar and went downstairs to pray. He went into a 3-4 year old classroom and noticed a sign in the corner that read "How to make God happy" and it listed 9 things...1) Sit still 2) Don't talk out of turn 3) Don't touch any other child ...

John said it made him so mad he wanted to throw a chair across the room...a bunch of "Do Nots". Right there at an early age the church is sitting on the passion of a child - snuffing it out. Conform. Behave. Be nice. The most holy are those that best keep the laws - those that are so in control of their life that they somehow sin less than others. Comply. And we wonder why the men are drifting off.

Jesus came to free us. He ransomed us from a life of captivity so we might have freedom. William Wallace when he was being gutted alive was told, "just pay respect to the King and we will end the pain"...in other words, give in, sell out. Refusing to comply he shouted his last words, "FREEDOM".

Erwin McManus says this, "This is how life is supposed to work - it's an adventure, a journey, a trek filled with uncertainty, excitement and risk. I am convinced there is a voice in each of us crying out, a confession waiting to be declared without shame, "I want to live!". We were created with a passion to live. So many of us have abdicated our passions for obligations, as if passion is a luxury for the young and we all must grow up. The drive to eliminate sin has more than contributed to the problem of passionless living. We have come to believe (let me interject that the perhaps the enemy has lied to us) that human passions are adversarial to God and corrupting in their nature. We've been taught that the solution is to restrain our passions with His commands. The result has been a Christian religion based on rules, rituals and obligations. When this is the case, Christianity is essentially like all other world religions - all of which instruct their follows to restrain their passions - this is the essence of Buddha - to exist without desire."

Is that what Jesus taught? That we should exist without desire? No! Whatever else Jesus came to do, one thing is clear - He came to set you free. God is not a warden; He is a deliverer. He so cares about your freedom that He was willing to be taken captive and crucified on your behalf just so you can run free.

Soar!