07/05/15 Rev. David McArthur
Freedom From Within
That freedom thing! Have you been celebrating? Freedom to choose our leaders, and freedom to disagree with them. Freedom to worship as we choose. They’re from without.
For the spiritual being there is another kind of freedom from within, which preserves the quality of our lives and what our lives are creating. Like 7 years ago when we were replacing our old building and there was a recession when everybody got afraid at once and the economic flow stopped. The lenders stopped lending out of fear. Fear took away freedom. But here, we chose to be free. God is our source. We can free ourselves from the fear of lack.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Charles Fillmore, in “Prosperity”, wrote, “Pour your living words of faith into the omnipresent substance, and you will be prospered though all the banks in the world close their doors.” God is our source, not banks. Because of that no one and nothing can withhold my good from me. We kept to this and our fear started to release. So a bank which had quit lending and which didn’t do church loans did for us.
Of those who lost family in the church in North Carolina, many said to the gunman, “I forgive you.” “Hate won’t win.” “We have no room for hate.” “I pray God for mercy on your soul.” “May God bless you.” That’s freedom! It was not an easy choice, but in it they found freedom from hate and destruction. It’s one of the most powerful choices available to us. They made the choice of love and used it to go to forgiveness. Freedom from hate, from what we’ve all done, that’s freedom!
I keep looking back at the experience of Viktor Frankl as he told it in “Man’s Search For Meaning”. Suffering the worst of man’s depravity in a Nazi concentration camp, he clung to his wife’s image in his mind until it grew more luminous than the rising sun. For the first time in his life he knew that love is man’s highest goal, that the salvation of man is through love and in love. He said he understood how even a man who has nothing left may still know bliss. This freedom from within that even the worst depravity cannot take away is in you. It is yours anytime you choose to love.
If Viktor Frankl can do it where he was, then maybe I can do it. If those families in North Carolina can, we can too. That’s the real freedom. We have freedom to choose love. If I understand his journey, that is the only choice that matters. I am grateful for those that showed me how. I choose love; I am free. I choose love; I am free. I choose love; I am free. What a treasure to live in a country that holds that. What a way to be! Enjoy!