I like to think about the freedom

This version is for my cousin from Montenegro Daa Naa.. As she wants to read, i translate the text.. Have a nice lecture.. I like to think about freedom. In these days I’ve been thinking about freedom within a Christian context. I get along this time I’m in church, various types of relations withfreedom. Two of them always caught my attention and are the two that I’ve been thinking more lately because of the last conversations I had with some people.Firstly, I think those who can not handle the fact that they are free, those to which freedom is scary. That is, they prefer to live under the yoke of ordinances on the burden of condemnations, under the burden of “law.”I think this is perhaps, the best way they have to walk in a way that, under his judgement, is the narrow path. Several times I have heard that narrow path is a path of self-denial of the wishes and desires, which all that is carnal is unhealthy, is bad and should never be fed  for a true Christian. In a way, is very similar to the Puritan view of the past centuries and that in some communities, even today we see.There are those who need to always have someone watching, someone showinghow to walk. The vision of the punishing God, collector, which will reward each one according to his works, that condemn unfaithfull, those who do not follow the ordinances to the letter,liking it or not, I think it is a comforting sight for those who submit to these demands and religious institutions, after all, ” the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed in us “as Paul would say in his letter to the Romans, as well as“He who does not deny himself and not take his cross and come after me, is not worthy of me “as Jesus would say, that is, there will be a condemnation of those who went as they pleased and there is a just God who will render the commitment dispensed.Of course, with this we have a serious problem about the motivation by which you walk, but I will not treat about it in this text, since I’ve written several times about this topic here on the blog.Secondly, I think about those who did not understand the concept of freedom preached in Jesus’ discourse and the speech of Paul in Galatas 5: “For freedom Christ has delivered you. Remain as free and  do not subordinate again to a yoke of slavery “and understand freedomas do everything you want to do when you want to do without concerned about the ethicals principles of their actions.I think the difficulty in dealing with the freedom of these is connected to the conception of grace that they have. Generally, to hear that now is the dispensation of grace, that there is nocondemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that all is pure for those who are pure  and other texts that we can take, start to look Grace like without limit, as without law, and then start to  follow the wishes in doing things, often without thinking about the guiding principlesthat we believe to be in the word of God. To these, I think they lack the understanding that grace is the end of the law, because re-meaning it according to the message of Jesus, as well as not understanding that a sign of freedom is not doing everything you want, but being able to choose what does not.We have a good example of this relationship of freedom in the parable of the Prodigal son. For me, the eldest son exemplifies the first case, those who can not handle the freedom, those who don´t recognize the freedom  that the father gave to us and the prodigal son, those who understands freedom as to do whatever you want to do.The way that most impresses me is the way of freedom of the second case, based on Galatas 5. Impressive because it is a fine line, the line of freedom and grace. With some minor slips, we can fall into a way that is not the way of Jesus. With the path of freedom,we  can loose the path of love of Romans 14 and thus left the way of Christ.Thinking in the  two cases, I like to think that the narrow path spoken by Jesus in Matthew 7:14: “Because strait is the gate and narrow the path that leads to life, and there are few  that find it. ” can also be seen as a way to walk the path of freedom, and a few find the path that leads to a abundant life and in love as proposed by Jesus.Let´s think about itFabrício Veliq – 09.02.12 – 10:00