Are You Really Free?

Posted on September 4th, 2008 in Attitude, Grace by Adelani Aderemi

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law Gal 5:1

 In the science permeated thoughts of modern man as well as those of the religious bigots – the Pharisees – of the time of Jesus, man has always derived formulae to get the attention of God. Well-to-do believers tend to often credit their peace and wealth to sound spiritual doctrines deductible from their supposed devil-proof formulae. And if you are going through a hard time in your life, you are bound to receive counsels bordering on the use of the right formulae to command God’s attention. Genuinely concerned folks are going to approach you with packages and methods, some of which they may claim to have tried and seemed to work out for them, or which seemed to be working for some people in their church. They might give you books and tapes from which you may glean your own sets of hypothesis out of the wealth of experiences of the authors. They have your interest at heart, and they want to help call a truce between an estranged and angry God and you. Surely, you have not gotten the correct formulae and you are tuned to a different channel while God transmits from another. So you must listen to them.

One of the first major assumptions is that your prayer life is on the wrong frequency and that is why the devil has turned you to a punching bag and God is none-the-least concerned. So you might get prayer formulae like: Fast and pray every Friday and read psalm 83” or “Wake up and pray with psalm 35 between the hours of 1:00am and 2:00am, then recite certain prayer points like “All witches and wicked people eating up my blessings, die in Jesus name”. Some might tell you to go for a dry fasting for three days or seven days, depending on how serious they think your case is. Or pray and fast for forty days and believe God for forty miracles, and so on.

If your problem has to do with finance, you may get formulae like: “Give alms more regularly, no matter how inconvenient it is for you. God will record it as credit for you” In fact, the more inconvenient it is for you, the more impressed God is, after all Jesus said Give and You shall be given. Remember the poor widow who gave all she had as offering in Luke 21:2, bro? Go out there and do likewise. Again, you might be advised to “Sow a seed of faith to the church” – any amount reasonable, in the light of ‘He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully’, or ‘Make a pledge to God, as Hannah did in 1Sam 1:11, tell him what you will do for him if he could just cats a glance down at you. You might even be asked to bless a man of God with substance for Christ said that whosoever will give gift to a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet. So God might have noticed that you have not been blessing men of God therefore he withdrew his own blessings from you. Well sister, burrow a leave from the Shunamite woman and it shall be well with you. It is not strange any longer to hear Preachers instructing their congregation to give all of January’s salary to the church as first fruits of the year to attract the abundant favor of God for that year. Yes it is also one of the formulae.

There are other formulae like the purchase and use of anointing oil, anointed handkerchiefs, holy water, rings and necklaces with cross of Christ which have been blessed by the Pastor. As you use these items, it is expected that God would not dare afford to look away from you, and who born devil to take a sneak glance at you? Some counselors may again ask you, “…but brother, do you speak in tongues? and if you answer nay….”Eh yaaa! That’s the problem bro. You need to speak in tongues. You need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. If you cannot pray in tongues it means you are not baptized in the Holy Spirit and the devil and his demons can log you off God’s domain when they hear what you are saying to God. (Despite Paul’s explanations in 1Cor 12:7-11, 13, 30; 1Cor 14:22.) Prayers in tongues are the only thing devil cannot decode, so he will be ignorant of your next move. If you don’t mind, follow me to my church and my Pastor will teach you how to speak in tongues devil cannot understand. By the way, sister, you must leave that your church, the spirit is not moving there and that’s why you people don’t speak in tongues. The list of these formulae is inexhaustible, for the mind of man churns them out on daily basis.

If you have challenges in your marriage, especially as it concerns the fruit of the womb, counselors might recommend series of deliverance prayer sessions that would free you from ‘spiritual spouses’ who have been making you to deliver your babies in the spirit world. There is also the formula of chain prayers and you might have to dole out some money to buy beverages and fruits for the nourishment of the well-intentioned prayer warriors who would be commissioned to pray on your behalf every hour of the day and night. In some cases, the lady might have to attend night vigils in the church premises – you know, sister, to show God how serious you are in getting children.
What am I saying here? Are any of these practices bad? Nonetheless. They are good scriptural exercises and discipline. They are good works and I am not condemning them. The question is “Is any of them or all of them combined together sufficient to command the attention of God? No. God’s blessings and favors are not earned and no one with his good works is righteous enough to stand in the presence of God. I have reeived many of these counsels before, and even believed them. I practiced them, but none of them worked out my salvation. None of them could make me stand in the presence of God without guilt. It is Grace that brings man to Christ and it is Grace that sustains him in Christ. Paul told the Galatians that such mechanical practice would cut them off from Christ. God is not about to make himself a debtor to man because of some ‘good’ works that man can think up, or certain rituals that man can devise. When we try to use any of these or other practices, no matter how spiritual it sound, to impress God so as to attract his favor, then we are involved in what Jesus described as vain worship Mark7:7. It emanates from doctrines of men, mechanically done and not from blameless heart.  

There is nothing man has received outside the Grace of God brought by Jesus Christ. Gal 2:8 The more we understand the grace, the more we would respond to the love of God with awe and love. If we have a relationship of love with God, praying or doing good works would not have to be derived by a law or hypothesis. Worship is a spontaneous reaction of a creature to the holiness, love, justice and wisdom of his creator. If man be in complete understanding of grace, even when he is going through the valley of shadow of death, there can be no doubt in his mind that God is with him even in that valley.(Ps 23) God loves man and will ever love man, not because of what man can do or has done, but because He is love and his steadfast love endures, unconditionally, forever.  At certain times in the life of man, he may experience sufferings as God moulds and remoulds him to a useful texture and shape. At such times, an unwary believer may be deceived to fall out of the freedom of grace into a mechanical routine of vain worship.

But let’s examine these points critically, General Overseers, Pastors, Board of Trustees would go to great lengths to find worship leaders who would do it just the ‘right’ way as they might deem fit. Church board call for regular updates of church dogmas, as they deem fit. I wonder, would there still have been these many denominations if the apostles’ doctrines were properly preserved and adhered to in all churches? What then is a right formula for worship? And what does a straight-jacket approach to God say about our faith?