Freedom and Obedience

Freedom and obedience are incredibly balanced and displayed in the life and the words of Jesus.  Jesus understands that he is free in that he has the power of choice!  To truly believe Jesus was fully human means that he had the ability to choose to follow God's will and plan for his life or to do his own thing.  Jesus also was divine and so he realized he had power to do miracles and could have tried to rescue the world in a different way than the Father had in mind.  But Jesus kept his humanity and his divinity in check and lived out obedience to the Father and the will of the Father.  Jesus willingly laid down his life to rescue all those who would believe in Him! Jesus words describe this so beautifully: 

John 10:17-18 (NLT)  “The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again.  No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”

The question for those who follow the way of Jesus today is can we continue to live out the example of Jesus?  Can I learn to live in freedom and obedience? Understanding freedom is not a selfish concept but rather knowing that I do have the freedom of choice and free will in my life, but I choose daily to surrender to the will of the Father.  

God has been leading me on this journey about my own daily rhythms of spiritual living.  Teaching me about morning prayers and evening prayers with some more structure to develop more healthy spiritual rhythms in my journey. I am working on more reflection on my day and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life - 2 Simple questions for reflection on the day: 
  1. How did I partner with the Holy Spirit today to do the will of the Lord? 
  2. How did I resist the Holy Spirit today and hinder the willl of the Lord?