I’m at Starbucks this morning, hanging out with a friend.  During our time, I get up and go to the men’s room (after all, we are drinking coffee).  I go to wash my hands and I notice that posted on the bottom left corner of the mirror is a note that all employees must wash their hands along with a six step diagram of how to accomplish that (I never thought it was that complicated but then again I am not a food service worker in the 21st century).  The last step after drying your hands, is to turn off the water with a paper towel. My first thought was that you really should try to turn the water off sooner to curb waste.  However, I realize that the priority is being given to having a clean, germ free faucet.  The only problem is that Starbucks has converted to paperless hand dryers and have removed all paper towels, so it is now impossible to comply with the letter of the employee hand washing requirement.  I’m thinking how someone who is OCD could actually stand there paralyzed, not knowing what to do.  Do I touch the faucet with my hands, hoping they are sufficiently clean?  After all, no one’s watching.  What do I do?  (At this point you may be reconsidering your statement that what I think is rambling is actually creative thought.  However, please read on because there is a point to all this).

All of this spawned a seemingly unrelated question:  Is Christianity expansive or restrictive?  I want to say expansive.  I truly believe that is the correct response.  But looking back over most of what I’ve seen in the Body of Christ, if I was answering based on what I’ve been taught, what I’ve observed, I would have to say restrictive.  Why is that?

I think one reason is that many of the activities we offer in the church are similar to low fat alternatives to food.  We have Halloween alternatives where we dress up (just don’t dress up as Satan) and hand out candy.  We have parties that are “just like” the parties in the world but without alcohol.  We have Super Bowl parties, but we don’t serve beer (what fun is that)?  It’s as if we have decided that ice cream is evil but that’s OK because we have non-fat sugar free frozen yogurt which is just as good.  But it isn’t. And we all know it isn’t.  The very fact that we are offering low fat alternatives is an admission that these activities were enjoyable.

It is clear that sin brings bondage.  It’s a trap.  Jesus came and set us free from the power of sin and as a result, we are no longer under its control.  That is freedom.  But beyond that, I have to believe that life in the Kingdom is far more fun, far more expansive, than life in the world.  Mankind lived in much greater freedom prior to the fall.  And if Romans 5 is true, then what Jesus accomplished through the cross was much greater than what we lost in the fall.  Therefore we should be living the most expansive, most free, least restrictive life possible this side of heaven (not that heaven is off limits).

Another reason we fail to see the expansiveness of the Kingdom is that many of us are afraid of freedom.  Freedom means we have choices.  Freedom means that we can actually make a wrong choice.  This shouldn’t scare us but sometimes it does.  I think it does because we are still not totally secure in who we really are.  In many ways, God trusts us more than we trust ourselves.  He has entrusted the preaching of the gospel to men and women.  That is an enormous responsibility.  Why would he do that?  Because He knows who we are better than we do.  Gal 5:1 says that, “it was for freedom that Christ set us free.”  Why did Jesus free us?  So that we could be free.  Freedom is that precious, that important to God.

Here’s what I think.  Before we were saved we were largely blocked from the realities of the Kingdom. We had no idea what it meant to be free.  We had no idea what God was like, what life in the spirit was, or if it even existed.  Now that we are His children the curtain has been pulled back and we have access to all that is in His Kingdom.  We know it is a fun Kingdom because it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Not only is it fun, it is stress free (peace) and it is right, it is good.  And the Holy Spirit is in a very real sense our heavenly tour guide.  He delights in showing us the wonders of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom of God is not a theory.  It is a very real place and we have been given free, unrestricted access to it.  The Bible says that all things are ours.  Everything God has, everything God has created is ours.  And there is no earthly equivalent for much of this. It is infinite, meaning we will spend the rest of eternity discovering it, enjoying it. It is so amazing there isn’t language to adequately describe it.  And it’s all there for us.   

We are all on a journey discovering the wonders of the world God has created for us, both seen and unseen.  We are discovering who He is and in discovering who He is we are also discovering who we are.  The further we go on this journey the less the pleasures of this world offer any real appeal.  That is not because we are fighting against them.  It is because the further we go in exploring the Kingdom, the more we realize how much better Kingdom realities are.  God has set us free to enjoy all He has.  And it is His delight to give us His kingdom (Luke 12:32).