The Gospel Means Freedom

I woke with a glorious thought this morning. We have forgotten that sin was a cruel task master. Sin bound our hands and minds and lied to us. It made us believe we lived in a small world. It gave us small minds and small eyes. Sin took away our hunger. Sin dulled the pain. It made us to walk in lock step. It wanted us to color in the lines. And we have forgotten that the gospel has made us free.

We have forgotten that the gospel made us free. That means, to begin with, that the gospel has already taken place. The good news of the gospel is history. God dealt with the real bonds of sin in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Therefore evangelism is an awakening. Eternity is in the hearts of men. They know in their bones they are free. But sin makes us love the bonds. Sin makes us love the bars and chains, we think are there. But we are free. The world has been free for over two thousand years. Gloria in excelsis Deo! Salvation has come to the world, the gospel made us free.

But sin was a small minded mold that set our bodies to slow, boring, and selfish movements. Habits are the hardest to shake, and Adam’s was bred deep. Being awakened then, being shaken out of our stupor, is teaching our bodies freedom. We must know that the gospel means we are free. We tend to think that means free to keep being small minded and tidy. We think it means pressed shirts and shiny shoes. So we live our lives in tiny cubicles: small sand boxes for grown ups. We glare and glower with our little toys and trinkets. We seize our precious scraps of life, when all the while there’s a world that dances around us.

The gospel teaches us to be wild. Jesus came to give life and life abundant. The gospel means reckless abandon. The gospel life is a wild life.