Freedom

"True freedom is not freedom from all responsibility to God and man in order to live for myself, but the exact opposite. True freedom is freedom from myself and from the cramping tyranny of my own self-centredness, in order to live in love for God and others. Only in such self-giving love is an authentically free and human existence to be found."

--From 'Obeying Christ in a Changing World' (John Stott - Daily Thought)

"...I have spoken with hundreds of people who end up at this same place: they are fairly sure that God loves them, but they also want or need love from other people -- or at least they need something from other people. As a result, they are in bondage, controlled by others and feeling empty. They are controlled by whoever or whatever they believe can give them what they think they need.

It is true: what or who you need will control you."

--From 'When People are Big and God is Small' (Edward T. Welch)

My two new books arrived yesterday. Even though I'm already in the process of reading several other books, I couldn't resisit starting "When People are Big and God is Small" this morning. Now, this is the kind of book that I would call a page-turner. It speaks to my life in such a powerful way. I can already tell this is a book I will read again and again. I read 56 pages in one sitting and only stopped because I had to.

You may not think this is a book for you. You may not consider yourself a people-pleaser, someone affected by peer-pressure, codependent on others, or needing people to think well of you. But, Welch so accurately writes, "Aggressively asserting that you don't need anyone is just as much evidence of the fear of man as the more timid examples...Fear of man is such a part of our human fabric that we should check for a pulse if someone denies having it."

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I live in fear of people not loving me (rejection) on just about a daily basis. This book lays out the biblical response to my condition. The world tells us the answer to this problem is to love ourselves more and to raise our self-esteem. Sometimes even Christian authors take on this approach. But the Bible tells us something completely different. Welch writes:

  • To really understand the roots of the fear of man, we must begin to ask the right questions. For example, instead of "How can I feel better about myself and not be controlled by what people think? a better question is "Why am I so concerned about self-esteem? or "Why do I have to have someone -- even Jesus -- think that I am great?" These are topics we will look at from many angles throughout this book, but included in the answer is the fact that we need a way to think LESS OFTEN about ourselves. We'll talk about why -- and how.
  • The most radical treatment for the fear of man is the fear of the Lord. God must be bigger to you than people are. This antidote takes years to grasp; in fact, it will take all of our lives. But my hope is that the process can be accelerated and nurtured through what we will study in this book.
  • Regarding other people, our problem is that we NEED them (for ourselves) more than we LOVE them (for the glory of God). The task God sets for us is to need them LESS and love them MORE. Instead of looking for ways to manipulate others, we will ask God what our duty is toward them. This perspective does not come naturally to any of us, and many of us need to look at this truth from several angles before we can see it. But the conviction of this book is that this truth is another of Scripture's divine paradoxes -- the path of service is the road to freedom.

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