A Little Bit of Freedom

Freedom. 

That’s what we all want, but so few of us have it. That’s why everyone wants to come to America, or at least, used to, because we could believe whatever we wanted and not be harassed. Freedom is seldom thought about, unless it is infringed upon. Then, all of a sudden, it rubs us the wrong way and we bristle at it.

This week, God has put on my heart the idea of freedom. Us Christians like to think we are free in Christ. And we are. But do we act like we are free? We are free from sin, but how many of us are chained down by addictions? We are free from the things of the world but how many of us are afraid of other people and that keeps us from acting upon the commands of Jesus? How often are we afraid of other Christians during worship when we want to act out but are afraid that they might think we are just “acting”? We have been set free but how often do we worry, stress and are anxious or scared about something? We are quick to put off those with the excuse of well it’s impossible to not feel those things, everyone feels those things. You can’t not worry about things. We have convinced ourselves that it is natural.

What if I told you, you were wrong?

There is freedom in Christ. I had grown up in the church for my entire life. I love church. It is a great place. A place to meet with other believers, worship our Lord and Savior, experience Holy Spirit moving, and hear a well thought out sermon. I've always had the mindset that every sermon had to be planned out, three points A, B, C, practiced, enough scripture included, a few jokes and stories to keep the audience entertained. If you didn't plan, your sermon would flop and no one would learn anything.

I had that idea in my head for as long as I can remember. Because of that, speaking has always terrified me. I never knew what to talk about, always trying to think of a funny joke to engage the audience or not run out of words and end the sermon early due to lack of material.

But all that changed.

There is a woman by the name of Heidi Baker and her husband Rolland Baker who both have their doctrine, went to seminary, did church, went to Mosan Beak, Africa and lived there for 20 years. I could go on and on about these two people but they aren't the main idea behind this blog. Anyways, they walk into the room and Holy Spirit descents into the place. They have countless stories of resurrection of the dead, healings, I could go on forever. But it was not the stories that really spoke to me. I was how they handled the conference. They had the same Spirit inside of them that I have. But they know him in a different way than I do, I think. After the worship set, she walked onto stage and picked up the microphone. She looked around at us and smiled. Then she sat down on the stage. She kicked her legs back and forth and sighed happily.

The first thing she said was, “Hmm, what does Holy Spirit want me to talk about today?” I sat there dumbfound. Here, this woman was going to run this three day conference and she had no idea what to speak on? She didn't prepare, organize her notes or tell us to forgive her if she went on any rabbit trails. She sat there for 5 minutes just smiling at us. Finally she said, “Ah! Okay, I know what we are going to do now…” and then she started. One thing she said that will forever speak to me was when she said, “There are no such thing as rabbit trails, that’s just Holy Spirit speaking.”

Afterwards, I went online with a buddy of mine and looked up youtube videos of Rolland Baker speaking. A lot of craziness went on at the conference that I’m not going to get into, but it got me to want to see what her husband was like. He was even crazier than his wife. I watched one video and for the first 40 minutes of the clip he just walked around and laughed. He would chuckle and make comments such as, “Ho, you people who came expecting a message aren't gonna’ be happy tonight!” and then he would laugh again. At one point during his wandering around the room, while laughing, he said, “You lose your fear of speaking when you don’t care if you ever get invited back again!” and started laughing again. You would think the guy is crazy. But he is filled with the joy of the Lord. I used to be the type of person who would give anyone a black look when they seemed to disrupt worship or act too crazy for my taste, like they are trying to bring attention to themselves. But I have been radically changed by the love of my Father and now I’m that guy. I can’t help but dance and shout when worshiping the Lord, it’s just not natural. We are commanded by Paul to rejoice! We think of Heaven has a great party, right? Singing and dancing and shouting to the Lord? Shouldn't our worship be the same? Rejoice!

Getting back on track, Rolland Baker didn’t just laugh. He also spread that laughter and joy with others. While wandering, he would touch someone with his hand or microphone and they would fly backwards, off their seats onto whoever was behind them or beside them, convulsing as if they had been electrocuted. But they would be laughing hysterically. They would lie there for anywhere between five minutes to thirty, just on the floor twitching laughing, laughing, laughing.  He would stand over them and chuckle, holding the microphone down to them so you could hear their laughter in the amps.

That went on for forty minutes.

Let me be clear, I know my doctrine. I don't take any speakers word on anything. I test everything against the Bible and the Truth and see if it lines up. I am not some star struck youth who is wow'd by something cool I've seen or a convincing point. If it doesn't line up with the Truth, they can do whatever they want to try to convince me otherwise but they would be wasting their time. I don't say that boast but to demonstrate that Rolland Baker is on point. He knows the Truth and he isn't afraid to share it.

I used to be a huge skeptic when seeing people being slain in the spirit, tongues, outbursts of laughter. You name it, I was the skeptic rolling my eyes. It has been something that the Lord has slowly been chipping off of me. Who’s to say the Lord can’t do those things to people? I’m sure not going to. Sure, there are people who fake it. But there are a ton who are genuinely being rocked by Holy Spirit.

The man brought the spirit of joy upon that place. He didn’t prepare anything for that meeting. He just showed up and expected Holy Spirit to show up. He didn’t stress over building the perfect sermon for a people who have heard a hundred sermons in their life. Instead, he brought what they needed. He brought joy. A joy that comes with not caring what man thinks about him. A freedom from the judgment. With that freedom, comes joy. When you don’t care what other Christians think about you when you sing and dance and shout to the Lord during worship, when you go to a coffee shop, stand up on the chair and proclaim the gospel and not care what the people in the shop are going to think of you.

There is a joy that comes with true freedom. Our Father in Heaven gave his only Son to die for us on the cross so that we might have freedom. Do we use that freedom? Did Jesus die on the cross for nothing? We say we do but are held in fear of other men. We don’t surrender our lives completely to the Lord. People say well that life isn’t for me, I have a different calling. Are we not all called to proclaim the message of Jesus? Is that not what all Christians are called to? Some would say well they would prefer to do that on an individual level. To those, I would ask, when was the last time you told someone that you loved them so incredibly much and meant it because Jesus loved them, who died on the cross to save them from death to give them freedom from their old life and allow them to be filled with a joy that nothing else in the world can compare to?

Fear holds them back, simply put. We care too much what people think, even what other Christians think of us. But with true freedom in Christ it won’t matter. There is too much joy to care what other people think. The more freedom you experience in Christ, the more joy you will have. Joy is different than happiness. Being happy is based off your circumstances. Joy isn’t affected by circumstances. It is based off the love from the Lord that he gives.

Going back to Rolland, he didn’t just wander around laughing, if you were to skip the first 40 minutes of the video, you would see him give an “ordinary” message about a pure heart. He joked, “Now for all of you who need to hear a message in order to feel like you gained something here tonight…” and laughed. He knew his doctrine. He was incredibly knowledgeable. He knew his Hebrew and Greek lexicon, he knew his scripture. He had done church. He just didn’t conform to it. He knew that there was more to it. He brought what the people in that church needed. They needed joy. They needed freedom.

This is all recent revelations the Lord has been speaking to me. I have gained an incredible amount of freedom these past couple weeks. I am still being freed from the fear of man and being judged by people. It is a journey. Our life with God is always a journey. I’m still learning. This revelation is still new to me and I’m guilty of all the things I have mentioned above. This letter is more to myself than any one person or people group. I want to be set free. I want more freedom. The Lord is releasing me from the fears that hold me back from truly living the life the apostles lived. They brought love, joy, peace and Holy Spirit. That’s what I want. I need it. Otherwise this life is nothing.