Days are fickle. A friend passes. A birthday comes. What’s tomorrow?

Days are fickle.  Yesterday, Dr. Price (a good friend of mine and many others) passed.  Today, it is my birthday.  What will tomorrow bring?  How do you make sense out of the craziness of events that are beyond your control?

I was reading from one of Paul’s letters this morning seeking truth that would help make sense out of the lives we live.  Paul was passionately driving home the point we no longer need be held captive by the law.  We can choose to live by the law and give up our freedom by allowing man to manipulate us for their own personal gain or we can choose to be free in Christ and live according to Christ’s will and purpose in our lives.  Living by the law versus living in freedom is as different as night and day.

Living a free life in Christ is beyond any effective description.  Paul attempts to share this freedom by writing a letter to his friends who found freedom but were looking to give it up in exchange for the favor of those desiring power and control over them.  Today, we as believers face the same challenge.  Christ may come for us and offer an eternal free life of which we accept.  Tomorrow, we as believers may choose to follow what we are comfortable in (familiar with) and reject the freedom we have been gifted.

Even as Paul spoke harshly against those trying to steal other’s freedom in Christ, I join Paul in the cause of encouraging each of my believing friends to embrace the freedom found in Christ.  Live life to the fullest engulfed in the grace of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, unhindered by those choosing to reject freedom by living under the law.  I believe my friend who passed yesterday enjoyed Kingdom living here on earth and now is enjoying the incredible true freedom of Christ in His Holy presence.  I can only imagine in the smallest of ways the amazement Dr. Price is experiencing as he peers into the very face of Jesus and approaches God unhindered as the Angels sing praises.  Holy is the name of Jesus.

Faced with the reality of mortality on earth, it is my hope others will remember me as one who chose to live life as a free man unhindered by the law.  A man who loved his freedom enough to appreciate the gift Christ gave him and chose a Kingdom life here on earth as it is in heaven, engulfed in Christ’s freedom and God’s love.  May my memories of you be the same.  Amen.