Thoughts on Christ and His Word

Those were the last words of William Wallace (Mel Gibson) in the movie “Braveheart”. An interesting bit of theology is that God gives freedom while Satan loves to take it away. Now that sounds odd because God has rules and laws for us to follow while Satan seems to encourage us to do whatever we want (which sounds a lot like freedom). In the New Testament God talks about us having “freedom” in Christ and through God’s Spirit. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17 Phillip Yancey in his book called “Prayer - Does it Make a Difference?” helped me sort out this confusion of God giving freedom and Satan destroying it. He wrote: The Bible draws a strong contrast between the freedom-crushing style of evil and the freedom-respecting style of good. In a vivid scene of possession by an evil spirit, Mark 9 shows a young boy foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and throwing himself into fire or water... forcibly overwhelming hum ...

Some say that “experience is the best teacher.” But there are two ways to learn from experience. One way is to learn from your own experiences. This is when life pounces on you and you learn what you ought to do and what you should not do. This type of experience can hurt and be very costly. It gives you the test first and then the lesson. The other way is to learn from the experience of others. You observe how life pounces on them due to wrong decisions; you take notes; and apply the wisdom to your life. In his book “Leadership Gold” John Maxwell writes a story that illustrates this point: One day a fox, a wolf, and a bear “went hunting together, and after each of them caught a deer, they discussed how to divide the spoils. The bear asked the wolf how he thought it should be done. The wolf said everyone should get one deer. Suddenly the bear ate the wolf. Then the bear asked the fox how he proposed to divvy things up. The fox offered the bear his deer and then said the bear ought to t...