The Gospel of Freedom

My newest book, The Gospel of Freedom, is finished! To whet your appetite, here is the introduction:

1 Corinthians 3:10-15

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

Living the Christian life is like constructing a building. The foundation is faith in Christ, but it is up to us what we build upon it. It is possible to build a Christian life that is a mansion adorned with gold, silver and costly stones. It is also possible to build a Biblically-based life that consists of scrap lumber with hay and straw filling in the cracks between the boards.

How can this be? How can I follow God with a sincere heart and still miss the joy and satisfaction Scripture says is mine? One reason is that a great many Christians and churches have lost sight of the core truths of Scripture and have highlighted peripheral issues in their place.

Matthew 23:23-24

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”

As these verses in Matthew demonstrate, the Jewish people in Jesus’ day had the same problem. They had placed the lesser provisions of the Old Testament ahead of the more important ones. As a result, they focused on issues of little consequence while they ignored what really mattered.

We do the same thing today. Instead of mint, dill and cummin, however, we focus on church attendance, Scripture memory and acts of service, among others. When we focus on the lesser truths of the Bible instead of the greater truths, the result is a building where roofing materials are used as flooring and carpet is used to keep out the rain. In the end, we are left with a Christian life that is far less functional and satisfying than what God offers to us in the Bible.

And yet, because what we are doing is good, we fool ourselves into thinking that what we are doing is right. You see, Christian activities are not bad in themselves, but by usurping the top place in our lives, they have caused us to build shacks instead of mansions, personal prisons instead of cathedrals of praise.

We need to build (or rebuild) our lives so that the core truths of the Bible receive the most emphasis and the lesser truths are understood in light of the greater ones. What are these core truths? Freedom and love.

Like the framework of a house, freedom and love support and hold together all of the different aspects of our lives in Christ. Without these truths at the center of our lives, we end up living out a Gospel that is disfigured at best and harmful at worst.

In this book, we will examine the roles of freedom and love as the framework of the Christian life. New Christians may find many truths presented here for the first time. Older believers will find familiar truths aligned so that they breathe life into our Christian experience. Let’s begin by defining three key words: Gospel, love and freedom.

Gospel – The Gospel is the intervention by God in human affairs through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, and all of the benefits that come to us through that. It includes salvation and much more.

Love­ – Love is an emotion. It is a strong affection for another that results in self-sacrifice on their behalf. Freedom is an essential prerequisite to love because love can only exist where there is freedom. In an atmosphere of obligation, love gives way to fear and servitude. It is no longer love.

Freedom – Freedom is the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross has given us complete freedom from all external and internal constraints that would limit our choices and our behavior. Christian freedom is a place where we are able to live free from concern for our needs and without any external rules, coercion or constraints. It is a complete freedom. In fact, Christians should be the freest people in the world.

This freedom, however, is not a license for sin. Instead, God has given it to us so that we might grasp, even in a small way, His love for us. When we truly experience the love of the Father, our response is to love Him back by doing what pleases Him. In this life of love, freedom and holiness live in harmony and neither is limited by the other.

There is a dramatic difference between a life walking in freedom and love, and a life walking in constraint and obligation. Even though they both may result in the same behavior, one is a mansion built with gold, silver and costly stones. The other is a caricature of what God has for His children – a tumbledown shack made of wood, hay and straw.

This book is meant to be read slowly, so that the truth of our freedom may permeate our minds and transform our lives. As we enter into true freedom, we will also develop a greater love and passion for Jesus. As this love becomes our motivation for life, it will overflow in a life of freedom and holiness far greater than we could ever imagine. We will truly have life “to the full.” (John 10:10)

Copies of The Gospel of Freedom are available at periecopublishing.com and amazon.com