The Offer of Freedom, and the Theological Virtues

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

I can still hear my father’s voice: “Paul, cast your line right out there – 30 feet in front of you and ten feet to the left. You should get a nice drift and a steady bounce off the bottom.” When I was young, not even a teenager, my father used to take me fishing. At first, when I was only three, he would take me to the Gulf Coast in Galveston, Texas where he would walk out into the water and cast his line. Later he would tell me, “To fish the Gulf is to fish among sharks.” I think about his words now and then, but I guess that’s the nature of fishing the Gulf shore. I would simply watch and wait for him on the beach as he would catch a plethora of fish. My dad was my hero.

The next year, and when I was four years old, my family moved to Longview, Washington. My dad still loved to fish, so he would take me often to the Kalama River to fish for steelhead (a sea-going trout). Years later, I reflected on those years, and I began to doubt I had any business being left on the Gulf shore at only three years of age. I also doubted that at the age of four I had much business being left on the shore of the Kalama River. Good steelhead fishing, if you’re not floating a boat, requires walking up and down river, so I would sit on rocks, throw a few stones, and watch my dad pursue his passion. I guess my dad never worried about my falling in, and come to think of it, neither did I. What matters is that at some point, after watching my dad and receiving his instruction, I learned to fish the drift myself.

Drift fishing . . . throwing your line out into a steady flowing river and feeling it bounce. Then reel it in again and repeat. I never was very good at it, but I enjoyed being with my father.

Self-Drift

I begin with drift fishing because it seems that many of us, at least many of us in American Churches, are experts at drifting. Jesus called us to be “fishers of men” (see Luke 5:10), but I’m pretty confident that for many Christians the only drifting we do in life has nothing to do with those little creatures that swim in our rivers. Rather, we experience self-drifting. In the New Testament we read,

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

So many of us come to Jesus and attend church, but soon get sidetracked and spend our lives pursuing our own agendas. “Jesus? I know He’s around,” we say to ourselves. “He goes with me wherever I go.” Yet deep inside we know we’re drifting. We’re not staying focused on God’s agenda. Our own agenda becomes number one.

Dangerous Freedom

What’s remarkable is that Jesus gives us the freedom to drift. We don’t absolutely have to do what He wants us to do. He doesn’t impose His will. He certainly calls us, but doesn’t force us. Even though we may be Christians, He gives us the freedom to live for ourselves. Sure, we suffer for it, and the consequences can be incredibly severe, but we have freedom to choose nonetheless.

Sadly, as we make the wrong decisions, we easily get pulled in by the world’s current and our relationship with Jesus begins to drift, and it happens so slowly that no one can tell us the precise point where we drift out to sea. It simply a risk we take if we’re not willing to surrender to God’s will moment by moment.

So why the freedom? Since He loves us, why does God, in a sense, take any risk on us at all? The answer has something to do with what I said in the previous post: “Freedom . . . provides the necessary environment for how these qualities can develop in our hearts.” What qualities? The qualities, or marks, of the theological virtues.

The Theological Virtues

What are the theological virtues? They are, quite simply, faith, hope and love. They are the very qualities that all Christians receive when they are born again. If you don’t have at least a measure of faith, hope, and love, then it’s difficult to see how you can be a Christian. That may sound a bit dogmatic, and someone might say, “Hey Paul, we’re saved by faith, and faith alone!” Okay, I certainly agree with that truth, but the faith we’re talking about is a transforming faith (it changes our hearts). So at the moment of conversion, in addition to faith (and the existence of faith is a complex subject that will have to be addressed in another post), God administers at least a little hope and love into the Christian heart. Sometimes He administers a whole lot more!

The Role of Freedom

So why does God give us the freedom to serve Him? It’s because decision making is the means whereby the heart and mind grow into Christlikeness. (Stop and think about the implications here. Stop and pray: “Am I making the right decisions daily?”)

Without freedom (at least a measure of freedom), we cannot believe, because saving faith is about trusting God. Consider the marriage relationship as an example. In a marriage trust grows as we keep choosing to bless our spouse. We earn his or her trust over time. The same is true with God. We choose to bless Him. We choose to praise Him.

Without freedom we also cannot hope, for Christian hope requires that we set our hearts upon the aim of that hope. In the Christian faith, our hope is in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)

Finally, without freedom we cannot love, for what is love if it is not something we want and desire to do? Can you imagine telling your spouse, “I love you because I have to love you?” That’s a description of a broken relationship, not a description of a healthy one.

More can be said, but the message here is quite simple: don’t drift. Tenaciously hold on to the gifts God has given you, and choose every day to love our God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Amen.