God Exists in a State of TOTAL FREEDOM
People in the world sometimes perceive God as some old fuddy duddy in the sky who can’t stand folks having a “good time” and therefore is obsessed with removing anything “fun” from our lives. While human religion and forms of legalism might be like this, the LORD is quite different and actually operates from a state of absolute freedom. See for yourself:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Thus in the Scriptures you’ll find several statements like this:
Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever pleases him.
The Lord does whatever pleases him,
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths.
In other words, God functions in a state of total freedom and therefore does whatever he wants.
What’s interesting is that people — male and female — are created in God’s image and likeness and so we have this same desire. We intrinsically hate captivity and the restraints thereof. We want freedom! This explains why we have an instinctive revulsion of slavery. No wonder efforts to end the slave trade in the West were spearheaded by godly people, like William Wilberforce in Britain and William Lloyd Garrison in America.
Satanic people & their godless ideologies, by contrast, love tyranny and bondage in one form or another. Communism is a good example. And this explains why citizens in socialist states East of the Iron Curtain always tried to escape to the freedom-oriented republics of the West and not vice versa.
That’s all I really wanted to stress in this article. Chew on these things and you’ll be blessed.
For those interested in additional miscellaneous insights on this topic, keep reading…
Democracies and Republics
While a king or queen rules absolute in a monarchy and an elite ruling class reigns in Marxist governments, the people rule in a democracy (the Greek word dēmos means ‘the people’ and kratia means ‘rule’). In a republic the people rule as well, except that they appoint representatives to do the political work, which frees-up the citizens to raise families and conduct the business of their livelihoods (the Latin res refers to an ‘entity concerning’ and publicus means ‘the public’).
Countries today that are called ‘democracies’ are actually republics since the people of the various regions elect representatives to carry out the political duties, like traveling to the capitol cities and speaking for them. America is a good example.
I bring up republics because they are God’s preferred form of government since they allow for people to function in the most liberty in a fallen world. While it’s true that the LORD uses flawed human governments in general as an instrument to bring order to societies by protecting innocent citizens from criminals (Romans 13:1-6), God is not a big fan of authoritarian-styled governments since they stifle human freedom (1 Samuel 8).
This explains why the first nation of millions of people to have no king in the history of the world was the Hebrews after they escaped slavery in Egypt. For the next 400 years they had no human king. Instead, the LORD was their spiritual King and they had noble human representatives or intermediaries, like Moses, Joshua or Deborah, along with the priests teaching the Law and individuals being accountable to God based on conscience.
While technically a theocracy, this was a republic from a purely natural perspective. It was the beginning of the concept of equality in regards to a nation of millions with the Law supporting the premise of no respecter of person, rich or poor. Ideally, everyone was to be treated the same and by the same standard.
This Hebrew Republic was God’s original plan for the Israelites, but eventually the people wanted to be like all the nations around them (1 Samuel 8:19-20), so the LORD reluctantly gave them their first king, which was Saul, who started out good, but became corrupt.
Interestingly, the Pilgrims used the Hebrew Republic as a model for government when they arrived in Provincetown Harbor & Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. They were a Puritan sect of the Church of England, known as Separatists because they considered their congregations separate from the English state church (as opposed to the non-separatist Puritans). They fled tyranny in Europe for sanctuary in the New World.
Here’s something interesting to consider: The Pilgrims in America focused on the model of pre-King Saul Israel, which was the Hebrew Republic whereas King James I of England (and other Euro monarchs) preferred the Israel of King Saul-onward.
King James naturally favored the Saul-onward model due to the idea of “the divine right of kings” in which Kings have subjects who are subject to the king’s will, which is the final word. This is in contrast to a democracy or republic that the Pilgrims had in mind based on the pre-Saul Hebrew Republic.
This explains why the colonies in America were so successful and attracted multitudes of freedom-seeking people in the 1600s-1700s, the vast majority of them being devout believers. Towns sprung up across the landscape, all Judeo-Christian republics. A group of people with their pastor would found a settlement, a town, and the church facility would service both spiritual gatherings and political meetings, aka the townhouse.
The reason the Hebrew republic ultimately failed is because of humanity’s fallen nature and the corresponding need for a new spiritual nature. Thus Israel fell into times of moral anarchy in which “everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 17:6 & 21:25). While this sounds good on the surface, it’s not good when people are slaves to the flesh or sinful nature and collectively lack virtue. In the American colonies, by contrast, the vast majority of the people were spiritual regenerated and hence the communities operated on the foundation of the love and fear of God and the virtue thereof.
So what hampered America’s godliness and goodness and led this formerly great nation to where it is now with all the glaring corruption and immorality? Simple: being a free nation, godless ideologies were increasingly introduced and spread in the last century through the educational system, the media, arts & entertainment and government. I’m talking about the atheistic religion of secular humanism, aka LIEberalism.
Thus, instead of being a virtuous nation, America is now looked on as a moral joke throughout the world, which doesn’t mean that there aren’t millions upon millions of genuinely godly people in the population; it just means that the ungodly are in positions of influence and power, corrupting the youth. The Parable of the Weeds (Tares) applies (Matthew 13:24-30 & 13:36-43).
So, just like with the Hebrew Republic in Israel, the people forsaking the fear of God and giving themselves over to the sinful nature is bringing down America and similar Western republics. The problem, of course, is that hedonism, aka libertinism, is not true freedom, although it disguises itself as ‘freedom.’ It’s actually just bondage to the flesh, which brings us to…
Individual Freedom
The problem with humans functioning in a state of total freedom, like God, is that human desires are corrupted by the flesh or sinful nature. Thankfully, the LORD has provided a way for us to “escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4); it’s called “participating in the divine nature” otherwise known as walking in the spirit (Galatians 5:16). When you learn to “put on the new self” you’ll be spirit-controlled rather than flesh-ruled (Ephesians 4:22-24) and, hence, your desires will be righteous rather than corrupt. (You can learn more about living by the spirit here or see this video).
When your desires change from worldly to godly you’ll naturally find yourself no longer interested in chasing worldly things for satisfaction. For instance, is going out on the weekend to get plastered on alcohol & drugs really “fun” or is it potentially destructive? Is it really “freedom” to “let loose” in this manner or is it actually bondage, bondage to the flesh?
If believers “escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” by walking in the spirit, the community in question will have virtue — a spirit of goodness — which is the opposite of lawlessness. And this is one of the reasons the American settlements were so successful in the 1600s, attracting throngs of freedom-seeking people in the 1700s, the vast majority of them being believers and, often, pastors & their congregations.
A few early examples include Puritan ministers Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone who led a group of about 100 people to establish the settlement of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636. Hooker also founded Windsor and is unsurprisingly considered the “founding father” of Connecticut. Meanwhile theologian Roger Williams founded Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636 wherein he established the first Baptist church in America.
While all forms of government in a fallen world are flawed and have shortcomings, the republic model — often called ‘democratic’ — is the best for individual liberty and opportunity. People tend to flourish in republics whereas they languish under the gross restraints of Marxist countries or dictatorships/kingships, which explains why folks naturally try to escape communistic states and dictatorships in preference for freedom-loving republics and not the reverse.
In republics the Word of God is freely spread and believers gather & worship at liberty whereas in communistic states or corrupt dictatorships/kingships believers have to meet secretly and, if they’re caught, they’re fined, imprisoned or worse.
Regardless of the form of human government believers exist under — whether freedom-oriented, tyrannical or somewhere in between — the individual believer can certainly function in a personal state of spiritual freedom thru living by the spirit since “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). In light of this you can be in a state of captivity and yet be free on a deeper level, like Paul when he wrote the prison epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon).
Remember, the LORD functions in a state of total freedom wherein He does whatever pleases Him. You are created in God’s image and thus naturally want to do the same. If you’re spirit-controlled rather than flesh-ruled, here are some scriptural insights on how to obtain your (righteous) desires, regardless of the government you’re under or situation you’re experiencing (or see the video).
Keep in mind, off course, that every believer will face the ongoing challenge of temptations, trials and tests during their spiritual pilgrimage in this fallen world, which you can learn about here.
Related Topics:
The Seven FREEDOMS — Take Hold of ‘Em!
Religion and Christianity — What’s the Difference?
Godliness and Religion—What’s the Difference?
Legalism — Understanding its Many Forms
Libertinism — What’s Wrong with It and How to Walk FREE
Understanding Christ’s LORDSHIP in the Believer’s Life
What Form of GOVERNMENT Is Best?
comments powered by Disqus