Free Your Mind

Since coming to grace, I've listened to countless sermons by people who have had "their hearts established in grace". Everything sings the song of grace in the Bible. It's a matter of the Spirit teaching us how to turn the pieces of the puzzle and where the pieces belong. We always view scripture through the eyes of law rather than grace. It's always "what can I do for God", when it's really what has God done for me. It's so clear in the scripture yet, we can't see it. We're blind with our eyes opening. Again, the movie the Matrix comes to mind.

When Neo takes the red pill to go deeper into the "rabbit hole", he is unplugged and now in reality. And when he wakes up, he says to Morpheus, "Why do my eyes hurt?", and Morpheus, looking at him says, "Because you've never used them before".

That is sort of how I feel. God is completely different from what I imagined. I had no idea. And it was all right in front of me. I'm learning how to see now. I've barely opened my eyes and need to be fed milk at the moment. A whole year of my life, I thought I knew everything and had my foundations. The reason I wasn't moving was because I was building my foundation on Jesus AND works. Or Jesus balanced with something else. Grace and "our part". What a crock. If you really think about what the word grace means, it makes absolutely no sense to say grace is balanced with works. The offense of the cross is the message of extreme love and grace. Yet people reject this truth...WHY!? It's good news!! Because we're afraid. We can't surrender the control we think we have. We fear entrusting ourselves to the Spirit. We fear letting go and resting in Jesus' words, "It is finished!". We secretly fear He doesn't accept us because we sin. I'm not being soft on sin, I'm being soft on sinners.

I love Paul Anderson-Walsh's words of muzzling a dog so he can't bite. But that doesn't stop the dog from wanting to bite, but the dog still desires to bite. In the same way, we clean to outside of the cup and forget the inside. Obeying the law is washing the outside of the cup. How can we speak good, when we are evil? Instead, wash the inside of the cup that the outside may be clean also. Don't work to bear fruit, but bask in God's gospel and trust in Him. He is the one who gives life. The flesh profits nothing.

We haven't even begun to realize the immeasurable love our Father has for us in Jesus Christ.

At the end of the Matrix, Neo says this:

I know you're out there...I can feel you now. I know that

you're afraid. You're afraid of us, you're afraid of

change...I don't know the future...I didn't come here to

tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you

how this is going to begin. Now, I'm going to hang up

this phone, and I'm going to show these people what you

don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world

without you...a world without rules and controls, without

borders or boundaries. A world...where anything is

possible.

.....Where we go from there....Is a choice I leave to you.