THERE IS ANOTHER side of this freedom we wrote about yesterday. It is an indeed freedom that leads you to an indeed bondage. A Muslim said to me one day, “You Christians are too free. We have to pray five times a day, but you don’t have to. You are too free.” I replied, “But after you pray your five times you are off duty. I’m never off duty, for I pray without ceasing. And interestingly enough, I want to pray without ceasing. This is a sweet bondage.”
This freedom in Christ is a freedom to choose a deeper and deeper bondage. Love is never off duty. There are no moral holidays in being a Christian. You surrender your all to Christ and then look for more to surrender to Him. “I want to see someone who is mad after Jesus,” said a Hindu to me one day. Well, the real Christian is possessed of a divine madness which is true sanity; he is mad after the Highest.
Amy Wilson Carmichael was a true saint of South India. For about twenty years before her release she was wracked with pain. She sent a message, “Tell them I’m in Nero’s prison, but I’m not Nero’s prisoner.” She was in the prison house of pain and invalidism, but she was not the prisoner of pain and invalidism; her spirit was free—free to rejoice, even to exult.
Paul, in Nero’s prison, was not Nero’s prisoner. He, though shut up behind bars, was free to roam the earth and the centuries and to bless and guide through his immortal letters written in prison. Christ, not Nero, had the last word and that last word was freedom. It is freedom and more freedom: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). He frees us to give us more freedom. God says, “All I ask is that you ask more.” And Jesus says: “I give you this freedom so you’ll have the freedom to ask for more freedom.” This is indeed freedom!
O God, my Father and my Redeemer, save me from subtle bondages that promise me freedom and give me bonds. I want nothing more and nothing less than Thee. In Thee I walk the earth free. I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Bound to Him, I walk the earth free—free to live.
