Leash and Collar

I am diligently starting my work on this message two hours and thirteen minutes before the official start of summer (June 21, 9:58 am CST). Yet, based on the picturesque rising sun on my face, the gentle warm breeze across my liberated leg air exposed by warm-weather shorts, the melodic stereo sounds of laughter (and some snorting) coming from the four compass points, and the firepit ashes that covered my office chair (AKA – folding camp chair) this morning it seems like the “science” of summer got it wrong… again. It is becoming quite the non-phenomenon that science has abysmally failed humanity. The very, very popular climate alarmists have uniformly declared that this week was the last week for humanity because of the faux “crisis” they created to control Earth’s population. Right on the backside of the covid circus that came to town, charging way too much for tickets, left their elephant dung everywhere, and had the worse clowns ever. These oligarchs just won’t take the hint that we will not relinquish our freedom.

This highlights a strength that fallen culture utilizes with much greater effectiveness than we have embraced in the Kingdom. The whole world knows about “THE VIRUS” and the militant responses, or consequences, required of Earth’s slaves if they are to eventually escape the chains. They hope to slide out from under the crushing tyranny of the carnival ring-masters who shockingly seem to become increasingly wealthy with the advancement of each new “apocalyptic” emergency we need to give obeisance to. It seems to be quite profitable to promote existential threats every so often.

It should be more mainstream in our modern society to reject the lies that enslave human souls and bodies. Yet, there is a painful and simple truth that many do not embrace but nevertheless is accurate… liberty is a hard-fought virtue, not a normal or natural condition. I used to believe that liberty was the natural state of a person and if it was removed or assaulted, that person would fight… but I have grown in knowledge as of late.

The older I get, the more I am convinced that the things of life which have true value are only obtained through sacrifice and battle.

There was sacrifice associated with every participant of Beloved Family Camp this year. Some sacrificed more, some less, but the rewards were more than worth it. There was a priceless cost expended, and continuously being paid, for the American ideals that are best encapsulated by our national expression, “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” If you forfeit one, the other dissipates equally. This principle holds true in the Kingdom’s way of life and our freedoms in Christ.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin… Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?

Romans 6:6-7, 16 BSB

There is a moment-by-moment aspect of this authentic Kingdom journey that we have been invited to voyage with our Father where cruise control is not an option. One of the devastating failures that slithered into the Ekklesia over generations was the false safety projected by having a “basically” moral society surrounding us. Those days have been shoplifted like the small businesses in urban cities. We are only left with the lethargic habits that have been passed down to us and have become enshrined into the attitudes of present-day religion to the point that the circus clowns are now directing even some of the church now.

We are the remnant of genuine believers who have a true revelation of being “born-again” from above through the supernatural reality of dying to our old life and way of life. But, are we bravely fighting to advance that new life in all of our ways and places of influence, or do we inadvertently slip back into slavery to the slave-based passions and pressures of the natural life?

We need not look too deeply to find the desire of the clowns. They want to surgically alter our children into some genderless, mutated zombies performing their ungodly wishes. Parents have been shamed and groomed into submission so as not to defend their children’s innocence and future. Corporate America has willingly put on the spiked training collar of woke pressure from DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) sycophants. Like hybrid-human Weiner-doodles, they are led around by the leash of mammon and government oppression. This has become so blatant that new terms like “Bud Lighted” and “Target-ed” are now showing up everywhere as laughable examples of virtueless and castrated leaders licking the boots of the anti-Christ mob carrying pr-I-de flags and promoting the cults of immorality and human sacrifice.

The above scripture passage has a question at the end. The reason Paul asked this question to the Gentile Roman church is that many did NOT know. He was using this effective communication tactic to shake them into clarity about their situation. Many do not know today still.

Here we are, legitimately liberated from the curses associated with the long fall of humanity by the glorious freedom of the Finished Work of Christ at the atonement and the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Yet, how many friends and neighbors we all can picture in our mind’s eye that are trapped in belief systems, habits, philosophies, and failures that have brought shame and condemnation as strangeling choke-collars bringing full-grown adults into cowered slaves ready to shrivel into the fetal position just wanting the pain to go away.

Please notice the phrase, “that when you offer yourselves,” also. In the same way that Jesus could not force salvation into our life no matter how much blood He shed, or how much of hell He destroyed, so also our enemy cannot force his curse or slavery into us without our willing agreement. As go the people, so goes the society. This is a scripture-wide concept that we need to have a greater awareness of if we intend to experience the freedom that belongs to us.

Adam and Eve were created free and then yielded to enslavement from a deceptive serpent. The Hebrew children were liberated by Yahweh in the days of Moses by mind-boggling displays of supernatural force and then wandered around the wilderness in discouragement and stiff-necked rebellion as the shock collar of their new enslaved status. How many times can we read instances of God bringing divine and miraculous deliverance to the nation of Isreal from their ungodly enemies only to turn the page and see them do the ignorant and circular downward spiral into slavery under a new puppetmaster? And before we turn our noses up in self-righteous snobbery… how many times have we returned to our own miserable behaviors as a dog returns to its vomit?

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 BSB

Jesus did all of the infinite “heavy lifting” to bring us the heavenly kind of freedom that our Good Father passionately wanted us to have. And, “he who the Son sets free is free indeed”! But the second half of that verse brings a sharp and weighty admonishment to remain in that freedom.

Jesus fought for us to be free, we should fight to remain free!

What areas of your life right now have slipped into bondage either through the pressures of society and culture or through lethargy slithering up like a snake in the grass? Are there places in your heart and Divine Destiny that you have just plain lost your will to fight for… maybe because it has been a long fight… maybe because the enemy looks mountainous?

Please remember, just as when we were embracing the training of the Spirit to become heroes, that it is important to define freedom the way Jesus defines it. We were required to define “hero” based on how Jesus defined it, it is equally important to define freedom the way He defines it as well. It would be super-easy to let the world, our plastic society, the amorphous present, the hypocrisy-laden progressive church-i-anity, the emotionally based touchy-feely culture that is hell-bent on redefining and then re-redefining everything nearly every day. Do not get sucked into their vortex of ignorance, Beloved.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true [supreme and sovereign] God, and [in the same manner know] Jesus [as the] Christ whom You have sent.

John 17:3 AMP

Jesus is our Liberator, our Father is the author of True Freedom, and the Spirit is the power behind living in these realities. Our Good God has a life, real life to offer us that looks nothing like what the world offers.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 BSB

Let the transformation begin!

I love you Beloved!
Steve