Let Me Just Check My List.

Have you ever noticed how we as humans measure, quite literally --  everything?

I suppose it is because we are contained within time, and time becomes our point of reference.  What we know, we know in terms of what is now, what has been, and what may be.  It is how we gain some sense of control over our lives.  We age, measuring from one year to the next.  We grow, measuring one "state" to the next.  We change, and we know this because we measure where we were to where we are now. 

We are constantly walking around with rulers and tapes and cups and calendars and scales and clocks and thermometers and money.  Look around and you'll be amazed at just how many devices you see, all whose express purpose is to measure  In fact, science is itself the act and study of measuring.

This is notable because as most things within the human condition, it is both a good thing and a bad thing.  We love to be encouraged by our progress from where we were to where we are now.  On the other hand, I hate it when I step on the scale and the measure is considerably higher than it used to be.  I love to be smarter than I was when I was 20.  But I hate that I'm more wrinkled and move more slowly.

Competition - it rises up out of a desire to be closer to God.  We Christians measure constantly because we, like everyone, want to win.  Sometimes we point to the Bible and then look at our lives, and measure the difference.  Sometimes we look at Jesus Himself, and do the same.  These are the good ways we measure. 

But more often than not, we look at each other.  We like to win, so we measure just how far we are from heaven as compared to our neighbors.  We take great pride in being further up the ladder, down the road, into the journey, older in the faith.  We reduce God to being a judge rather than a father. 

Beyond that, we reduce our freedom in Christ to a set of rules.  Rules are far easier to measure than freedom.  Freedom is a release from measurement.  It's like floating in space, or in water.  It has no boundaries; it is immeasurable.  It is like God.  When we reduce our freedom in Christ to a long list of rules, we immediately set limits to our freedom.  We cage it in and make it what it cannot be.  We try and measure what cannot be measured.

Now while this is all very cerebral, it has its applications in everyday life.  Paul talks about it when he speaks to the Galatians, who had taken up their measuring devices with a vengeance:

Galatians 3 --
 ^5-6Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?

In other words, why do you think God loves you?  Because you can measure everything you do, and you think it meets His expectation?

Talk about ridiculous.  Paul goes on to emphasize to these people that it doesn't matter what they do - God loves without abandon and calls us to a freedom through Christ.  Death, by definition, is a measurement: it is the end of something.  Sinning is being outside the presence and grace of God.  So sinning is actually slavery, because it is bound within the limits of what can be measured.   When you choose sin, you choose measurement.  You choose being within the confines of something.  Freedom is just that - freedom in Christ - and has no boundaries.  It cannot be measured.  Basically, it's kind of silly for me to say that I'm more free in Christ than you are.  It's like saying I can float more than you can.  If you're "more free" than I am, it's got to be because I'm not free in the first place.

Paul sums it up this way in Galatians 3:

 ^11-12The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that's the real life." Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them."
 ^13-14Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself.


He continues on with this idea in Galatians 5:

^23-24Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
 ^25-26Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. 

Legalism amounts to measurement.  And a life in Christ is free, absent of measurement.  We step out of that freedom every time we step into a life that is measured -- whether by obeying rules (and confusing that with freedom) or by stepping away from the presence of God into sin.  My husband Mark has always described it as being under an umbrella, and God is the umbrella.  When we decide to run out from under that, we get wet or sunburned or hurt in some way.  And then of course we have to measure just how sunburned or wet or hurt . . . you get the idea. 


So I don't know about you, but I'm throwing myself off into the deep ocean of freedom.  It's pretty scary to leave the safe boundaries of measurement.  I know full well I'll be jumping back into the boat, into the small confines of my selfishness and limited view of life.  But I also know I'll have a look at that vast openness and jump right back in again.  And someday, I'll jump in for good.

Wanna go swimming?