The Big Lie about Freedom
The Big Lie that keeps many people from getting the Big Idea of Freedom Season:
Freedom means the freedom to be myself--make my own choices, avoid pain and stress, and enjoy life as best I can.
This lie has some truth to it. Having other people run your life is a terrible thing. Comfort is better than pain, and who doesn't want to enjoy life? But the Big Lie will not lead us to authentic freedom, and we know it.
We know we have to take other people's welfare into account in our choices because our choices affect them. We know huge things happen all the time that are out of our control, and we are not free to ignore such things. We also know we do not want to be "free" like the guy in the cartoon on a tiny desert island.
So we settle for the goal of living as freely as is realistically possible. Our ideal is the freedom to follow our heart. Our reality falls short of that. That's life, or so we think.
We may not realize there is a counter-intuitive way out of this half-free kind of living. We can get a new "self," one that is capable of total freedom instead of just partial.
Ideally this new self would be free to express itself completely and we could follow it 100% of the time, knowing it would never lead us to disrespect or harm anyone else. But does such a self exist? If it does, would we risk trading our current self, our deep self, our core identity, for a "self" we don't know yet?
This is the trade that Jesus, the Freedom King, calls us to make, trusting his word that it will lead to total freedom in his new era of freedom. "Whoever saves his/her life ["self"] will lose it, but whoever loses his/her life ["self"] for me will find it ["a new free self"]" (Luke 9.24).
This trade is what all the "Freedom" pages on the SYNC site are trying to make clear to people. Those who realize that the Big Lie is a lie will realize they do not have to settle for a half-free life. As People of the Future (POTF), free citizens of the kingdom of Jesus, we are new people, totally free because our new selves are totally aligned with the will and the Spirit of Jesus the King.
In a sense we are "under his control," but he is not Hitler, and the rhythm we hear is not for a goose-step march. This is a dance rhythm. It is liberating not confining. Jesus is the Freedom King, and our new selves love him.
How you can tell if you are falling for the Big Lie
Very simple. If you see yourself turning down the trade that Jesus says would lead to fulfillment in life--trading your current "self" for the new self he promises--you are under the influence of the Big Lie.
You keep on looking for fulfillment in life through your old selfish definition of "freedom". Let's call it the MME approach to life:
Make my own choices
Minimize my pain
Enjoy what I want to enjoy
You stick to the familiar MME path and keep hoping it will eventually get you into that free kind of life you dream of. It keeps dumping you half-way there. Maybe by now you have settled for that as the best you are going to get. If so, you have bought the Big Lie.
However, if you believed the truth that Jesus is telling you about authentic freedom, you would see right through the Big Lie. You would trade your current life for the new, unexplored one he is talking about. You might take that step with a lot of fear, but you would do it.
Unexplored things are scary, and Jesus is not pretending it will be easy to let go of the Big Lie. In fact, he made a full disclosure of just how agonizing it can be to let go.
In the biggest crisis of his life, when Jesus knew he was about to be arrested, condemned, and executed, he asked God his Father to find another way to accomplish his liberating mission. That fateful night in the Garden of Gethsemane, he sweat blood over what was facing him, but in the end he said the words that I call his hallmark, the defining mark of authentic freedom, "Not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22.42).
Those words set us free in God's will, not from God's will. Those words break the power of the Big Lie. Jesus gave up his personal freedom for the sake of fulfilling his assignment in God's freedom campaign.
As People of the Future that is what we have to do to "follow Jesus". His agenda takes priority over ours. Our pain or comfort is not a decisive factor in our choices. Other people's needs are as important to us as our own. Even in our moments of crisis, we keep telling Jesus, "OK, my King, your way, not mine. Here we go."
That is the front door and the only door to free citizenship in Jesus's kingdom. "Whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Luke 9.24). As we lay down the freedom to live life our own MME way, we discover the real freedom that Jesus was talking about.