To please God… to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son- it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress… Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 7
Oh beloved, it is true. We were not only stuck in our old life. We were in the worst of marriages. We were bound to a taskmaster whose only purpose was to show us our failures. And even beyond the purpose of the taskmaster, there was this terrible “me” within the whole equation that seemed to even egg me on to my failure.
The husband was merciless.
Everything we tried to do to please this spouse was fruitless. The very things we wanted to do, we failed at miserably. And our highest aspirations fell so pitifully short as to invite the groans of an embarrassed audience in the heavenlies.
There was no way out. And things were worse than bad. We were doomed. We were at the very beck and call of the wild animal of “self” within us. We were so stuck. Oh, we tried to act like we were not entrapped. But this never worked.
Further, we sometimes even tried to find another husband. We looked at other codes and ways to pray and chant and fast and give our way to freedom. This didn’t work either. And we knew, that while the feelings we had in regard to our spouse, we knew that we knew that we knew every letter of the Law he was – was totally right and true and noble and just and pure and lovely.
Then everything changed. One day we looked at the reality of our bondage to the law and realized that both it and the Prophets spoke of something else. Actually, The Law and The Prophets spoke of SomeOne else. They pointed to this One who would be both the very anointed of The L_RD and G_d Himself.
And we found that this Same One did die that we might live. It was a torrential death, that pulled us through it as well. We died with Him, Jesus, when He died. But it did not stop there. This same Jesus conquered death completely and did bring us through to eternal life as well!
Can we see it? Just as a dying spouse is freed from a taskmaster spouse, our life was freed from the horrible condemnation of the Holy Law of G_d in our death with Christ. We can see this perhaps, but we can also be missing the purpose of the death-to-life transition which has come through our faith in Christ.
He wants more than our freedom
He wants more than our forgiveness
He wants more than our salvation.
He wants us. Literally. And not that we might become slave again to some harsh master of rules that beats us up about our failures. No. This Suitor wants to ravish us with His Great Love. And in lavishing us with that which is Love and Life Himself, our lives too begin to actually and truly bear the fruit of heaven.
So, are you feeling beat up by your faith beloved? Perhaps it is time to see Who you are really married to now that you have trusted Christ. You are no longer married to the Law, you are the freely Loved spouse of the King of The Universe. And this new Love will have no end.
Tonight is your night. Time to believe in the lavish Love and freedom you have in Him.
