Christ Offers Freedom.

The Community of the Redeemed that Jesus established was never meant to be controlled , regulated and ruled by some hierarchy in a denominated religious building where people are governed by rules and regulations in order to conform to some denomination's constitution and bylaws in order to be considered as a "Child of God". Rather, Jesus invites the redeemed into a transforming relationship with Him that allows us to share in His ever revealing purpose for the Community of Humanity as His character, love and grace develop in us and we allow Him to work through us in demonstrating His love and compassion to the across-our-path people we meet in our daily living of life.

Being a follower of Christ is meant to be a relational journey, a relationship with God and with people, not a religion of do's and dont's or shoulda's and coulda's!

The Gospel is about helping people discover the joy and freedom of relationship with the Divine. Jesus' death on the cross was to prepare for each of us a dwelling place in the heart of His loving Father and prepare our vessels for Him to abide in. It was to free us from religion to be involved in the kind of relationship that shares His life with people by being His Community of the Redeemed in our daily living.

A personal relationship with God is not just words to describe a christian's Sunday-meeting-gathering, rather it is the very way He has called us to live. It is having healthy relationships with sinning saints as well as sinning sinners. Many today think fellowship is nothing more than attending the same event-driven-Sunday-meeting, but it is meant to be so much more. It is people relating to one another in His love that allows the ministry of Jesus to flow between them on a daily basis and not just meeting time. It means developing a relationship with sinners, so that as they see God's character expressed through us they will be faced with the opportunity to know the love of God for themselves.

For that to happen we need to live in and understand the freedom that Father has provided us through Jesus establishing the Gospel of Grace. Only as we live in His love and and grace can we even begin to experience freedom and the power of the life of  Christ in us to help people discover the freedom that He offers.

Christ provides freedom:

1. To live in the love of the loving Father, free to respond to Him as He desires, even though you will make mistakes now and then.
2. To walk without guilt or condemnation. Recognize that transformation is a life-long process that Jesus works in us through our security in His love, not something we do for Him out of obligation.
3. To be real. To feel what you feel; to ask what you need to ask, to be wrong where you are wrong, and to extend that same freedom to others.
4. To be liberated from accountability to human leaders who, whether they realize it or not, usurp the authority of Jesus in the the Sunday-meeting by telling others what they think He would have them do and how He would have them live.
5. To love other brothers and sisters freely, serving them the way Jesus leads you and not trying to conform to expectations of what a 'good religious Christian' should do.
6. To live free of bitterness and hurt, even where religious institutions (and those who run them) have failed you. None of us are perfect, so there can be no end to the kindness and forgiveness we can extend each other.

As believers we need to stop trying to earn or seek God’s blessing, and instead put our intimate relationship with him above everything else we might want from God. 

Do we desire the presence of Jesus more than we desire His blessings?