The statistics are staggering, guys.
According to Huffington Post, 30% of women and 70% of men view porn, and this number is climbing. Porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter COMBINED.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2007 23.2 million people age 12 or older needed treatment for drug or alcohol use. Age 12 and older?? Lord, have mercy.
There are approximately 20-30 million slaves worldwide and the average age that children enter the sex trade in the U.S. is between 12 and 14.
These are only a few of the addictions that plague our country and the world at large today. Addiction is defined as the continued repetition of a behavior despite adverse consequences, or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviors (according to wikipedia-- relax, this is the true definition). My heart is heavy as I write these words. This may be a free country in ability to express religious and political views without threat of arrest or imprisonment, but this is not a free country in so many other ways that really, really matter.
People are enslaved to that which they worship. And there is a whole lot of enslavement happening here. Its pretty easy to quip that we are free, and yet live as a slave to addictions, unhealthy thought patterns and guilt.
It happens all the time, and yet, the more I read the story of Jesus through the Gospels and the book of Acts, I realize that Jesus' ministry was one of freedom. Freedom for the captives. Release from prison. Healing for the lame, crippled and beggar. But even more, Jesus was about spiritual freedom.
To the woman caught in the act of adultery in John chapter 8, Jesus says: "Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (vs. 7) and then he sends her away, not condoning her actions, but telling her, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more" (vs 11). This really angered the Pharisees. They were law masters. They knew the law like the back of their hand, and yet their hearts were corrupt as could be.
Jesus spoke freedom to the woman caught in the act of adultery.
He then goes on to tell the crowd that "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (vs 31-32). He knew a thing or two about freedom, and he lived it.
For the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), there was freedom. First off, Jesus stopped to talk to her which was unheard of. Jews did not associate with Samaritans, and they certainly did not associate with Samaritans of the opposite gender. Jesus didn't care an ounce about social restrictions, though. He correctly assessed that the woman had had five husbands and was living with a man that was not her husband. She was probably the laughingstock of the town. Jesus did not condemn her, but he told her that he desired worshipers who would worship in spirit and truth, and she believed and told all that had happened.
I doubt that woman walked away feeling the same oppression that she had felt just a few minutes earlier. She had experienced freedom in just a few short moments in talking with Jesus. She experienced freedom from being bound by the judgments of those in the city, because Jesus reminded her that she was of value.
In Mark 5, Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit. The text says that he lived among the tombs and no one could bind him (vs 3), that is how strong the demon inside of him was. He had been bound with shackles and chains but he would break out of them (vs 4). The man saw Jesus from afar and ran, fell at his feet, and Jesus sent the spirits (thats right, there were multiple spirits) out of the man. The man who had been healed then begged Jesus to take him along, but Jesus told him to go and tell his friends what had happened (vs. 18-20). He was a missionary from that moment on.
Not only did Jesus free that man, but he also told the man to go and share that freedom with those around him. And he did.
He did not want to keep the freedom for himself, but he wanted to pass it along to all that he came in contact with. It was too amazing not to share. True love had touched him and he was forever changed.
Our great God is the author of freedom, and Jesus is a picture of that freedom, walking among us those two thousand years ago.
Paul recorded this truth in some of his letters, written to the Galatians and the Corinthians. He reminds the Galatians: "You were called to freedom only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another" (5:13). To the Corinthians he simply states this-- "Now the Lord is Spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (3:17).
Guys, Jesus is all about freedom. In fact, I believe that freedom is essential to the Gospel message. As God's children we are free from being slaves to sin. We are free from having to work to be 'good enough'. We are free to live as children of God and rest in his presence.
Freedom comes only through the author of freedom. It does not come through allowing our emotions to dictate our lives, through running relentlessly from one lover to the next, or from being skinny enough that Hollywood accepts you.
We are not in bondage, because Jesus set us free through his death and resurrection. Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery (allowing sin to be your master). Freedom is the Jesus way, and that does not mean that we will never struggle with any sort of addiction, but it does mean that we are not destined to be slaves to sin. We do not have to earn our right to be called children of God-- that has already been done for us. We can simply be, in the presence of our God.
The law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Through Jesus, and there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1-2).
Cry out to him. You were not called to slavery, you were called to freedom. And he is in the business of true freedom.
