Remember

Today is Memorial Day. We remember the men and women who fought to defend our freedom. We honor those still protecting our country.

Remembering the past can change how we face the future. It can inspire and motivate us. It can affect how we think about our identity.

That’s why God calls us to remember.

He tells us to remember those who have gone before us in and laid the foundation for our faith (Exodus 32:13, ESV).

He tells us to remember to love and serve the poor, the widow, and the orphan (Galatians 2:10, ESV).

He tells us to remember others in our prayers (Philemon 1:4, ESV).

He tells us to even remember our sin and rebellion against Him (Deuteronomy 9:7, ESV).

However, one of the most frequent commands to remember has to do with freedom.

God commands us to remember that He has given us our freedom and defended our freedom.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15, ESV)

We were never slaves in Egypt, but we were slaves to sin.

God brought us out of our slavery to sin and into freedom. He took the death that we deserved on the cross and offered us life. Now, He protects and defends the freedom we have in Him.

And we are to remember.

Not for the sake of remembering but in order to change how we face the present and the future.

Because of what God has done in the past, we are to trust and obey Him – now and forever.

So, don’t forget to remember.

Remember the men and women who protect and defend the freedom we enjoy in this country.

And remember the God who protects and defends our hearts and ensures our eternities.

Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome

Four employees were held hostage at Swedish bank in 1973 when a botched bank robbery turned into a six-day standoff between the captors and the police. The incident, now decades past, would have been long forgotten save for an interesting twist.

The captors and captives bonded.

In fact, when one of the hostages spoke with the Swedish Prime Minister on the phone during the standoff, she said she trusted her captives fully, but feared she would die at the hands of the police.

She trusted her captors over her liberators.

The situation was so remarkable that it was dubbed “Stockholm Syndrome.”

It describes the implausible love of a captive for his captor.

It’s absurd.

But, I get it.

Sin is slavery. It takes me captive. It holds me hostage.

Yet, I choose it. I submit to it. I even love it.

The Bible says that we all do.

It’s a spiritual Stockholm Syndrome.

We have a Liberator. He offers us freedom.  He is decidedly on our side.

Let’s call sin what it is – a Captor.

Let’s, instead, trust our Liberator. Let’s love Him. Let’s choose Him.

To do otherwise is absurd.

The Day After Christmas

Christmas is over.

 The gifts have all been opened.

The Christmas cookies have all been eaten.

The Christmas movies have been shelved and the Christmas songs have been silenced.

But, Christmas is about Christ and, tomorrow, Christ will still be Christ.

Let’s not forget that, for the Christian, every day should be Christmas.

Every day should be a celebration that, in Christ, God dwelt among us. Every day should be a celebration that, in Christ, God came to rescue us. Every day should be a celebration that, in Christ, we are free from our sin.

If you don’t know Christ, I pray that you would come to know Him. There is no other name by which we are saved. There is no other means by which we can experience a relationship with God. There is no other truth. There is no other road. Forgiveness is offered to all, but given only to those who will accept it. I pray that you accept it.

If you do know Christ, I pray that the spirit of Christmas would reign in your hearts all year long.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Freedom and Fishbowls

In his 1913 dictionary, Noah Webster defined freedom, in part, as the “exemption from the power and control of another.” Freedom, we have come to believe, means that we are not bound to anyone or anything. In our highly individualistic culture, we place great value on such independence. But what if we’re wrong? What if we have misjudged our reality and misunderstood true freedom?

Consider a fish in a fishbowl. It would be ridiculous for a mother fish to say to her baby fish, “You can be anything you want to be.” That is simply untrue. The fish lives in a finite reality, with finite opportunities. True freedom, our culture might say, would be to shatter the confining bowl and to explore the world beyond.

What, though, would happen if the fish did manage to break out of his glass world? He would be unable to survive his newfound “freedom,” for he would soon suffocate. The walls of his fishbowl, it would turn out, were not hindering his freedom but maximizing it.

We too live in a finite world. Praise God, He has given us a world far richer than a fishbowl. But it is finite all the same. There are boundaries around our reality. These boundaries, drawn by a God infinite both in love and knowledge are for our good and His glory. True life, true freedom, is found within His boundaries. To believe there is life outside them is to be deceived.

Can we break through the boundaries? Sure, we can. But, when we do, we, like the foolish fish, find that it leads only to death and despair.