Follow the Freedom

 

Many people love the popular teaching to “Follow your heart!”

We know that God is love (1 John 4:16) and so we understand our need to love as Jesus loved. (However, there are some differing views about just how He loved, a topic for another post.)

Interestingly, in Mark 12:30 we are commanded, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Every aspect of our lives and thoughts is to be caught up in our love for God.

This is not just recently but, as Covid has done with many things, more of the truth has been revealed regarding our unwillingness to love God with all of our souls, minds, and strength. We are still fine with loving God with our whole heart – the feelings are all in – but using our minds and strength are a little more difficult in trying times.

In addition to wearing masks, social distancing, forcing some businesses to take great financial losses or to close and interrupting the educational systems, we have added societal pressure to receive an experimental “vaccine.”

What does all of this have to do with loving God? In order to show love and honor to God in all aspects of our lives we must use our minds in a disciplined, questioning, and rational manner.  We cannot sit back and listen to all of the talking heads  and take it as truth. Neither can we accept that because we are not educated as scientists that we cannot understand the science when we read it. Or, out of fear just take anything that is offered to relieve us from our responsibility to learn and reach our own understanding of things.

In His Word, God tells us that the truth will set us free (John 8:32). That freedom includes the freedom to protect ourselves and our families from harm, our freedom to follow the Word of God with regard to honoring our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, and to love Him with all of our souls, minds and strength, as well as our hearts.

Our own research may leave us with an understanding that all of the government mandates are right or we may come to the conclusion that they are politically motivated and killing more people than the virus. Either way, as responsible Christians we should have the freedom to obey God before we obey man and to use His Word to help determine our understandings.

The world can be a great influence on our thinking. The pressures of man can “feel” overwhelming until we try to align our feelings with what the Word of God says…and we are commanded to do this (1 John 4:1).

The fear of illness and the fear of man must not overtake our fear of God in order to do the right thing before Him.  Fear is a great motivator and both media and government know this.  Fear promotes hasty decisions, not necessarily well-reasoned ones.

The route to freedom is not through following our heart but through obeying the Word of God. This requires discipline to seek out answers based on His Word. It will also require us to love God with all of our strength to fear and obey Him rather than man. We must weigh what we “feel” against what we “know” to be true (based on the Word of God) because that will lead us to freedom in Christ.