Freedom

Contrasts can help us see things more clearly. If you don’t think contrast helps, just click on the menu on your computer or television set and change the contrast settings.

When I hope for people to see Jesus more clearly, I will often make this statement of contrast:

“The difference between Jesus and me is very simple. He was 100% satisfied in God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and moment by moment. I am not.”

This contrast in levels of constant satisfaction found in God explains why Jesus did not sin and why I do. Jesus was 100% free of unmet needs. In fact, Jesus was 100% dead to the world and it's offer to fulfill His needs...and 100% alive to God’s ability to meet all His needs.

A careful reading of Matthew 4 where Jesus is tempted in the desert reveals that Satan could not lead Jesus into sin because he could not find any dissatisfaction in Him to use leverage toward sin. To the extent that Satan finds dissatisfaction in me, he gains leverage over me. My level of dissatisfaction reveals the extent of my slavery to the things of this world. My level of dissatisfaction will also reveal how easy it is for my love to stop.

100% satisfaction in God allowed Jesus to be free to love God and others without any distractions or interruptions. Loving continuously like Jesus did is to be truly human.

In John 8, Jesus said that we could become completely free if we would abide in His words:

“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31-32

This is a remarkable promise considering the contrast between Jesus and me. Jesus’ promise means that He can allow me to become completely free of needs that have interrupted my love of God and of others. As He frees me from the things He never needed to find satisfaction, I become more human - more like Him.

In our modern world it is getting harder and harder to be free of ever expanding needs. It is getting harder and harder to figure out what we do not need. There are too many new offers of satisfaction coming at us each day.

Every time I go down the cereal aisle in a grocery store, I have flashbacks to my childhood when the choices of cereals seemed as simple as Raisin Bran and Corn Flakes. Now it takes an hour just to decide what cereals one does not need.

Those who market cereal know that the longer they can keep me on the cereal aisle the better chance they have of selling me something I do not need. Certainly every hour spent on the cereal aisle must mean I am leaving some act of love undone somewhere. An hour on the cereal aisle can’t be called freedom any more than an hour filled with dissatisfaction can lead to love.

Could it be that the hours we spend wandering around shopping malls or surfing the net are really just new ways for us to be more needy and less free to be human? Are we made more human now that we have so many more choices of things we do not need?

To be truly free of something is to not need it in order to be fully human. What do we truly need to be loving human beings? We need the same satisfaction Jesus found in His Father. That satisfaction made him the loving human being He was and is.

Augustine said, “Slavery to God is perfect freedom.” He was right. When our only necessary attachment is to God and He is our only source of satisfaction, we are finally free to love - to be human.

Stay focused on Jesus and his satisfying words. You will be free indeed to sustain love just like Jesus did. And when you are free to love continuously, don’t be surprised if God sends you right back to the cereal aisle to set the other prisoners free.