For Freedom I Have Been Set Free, Lets go!!

The last week has been craziness! I feel like I have been in three different places at once. Last week of SOIP. Outreach and looking toward the future aka the United States Of America! All so exciting!

This past week I stood in front of a filled dining hall at YWAM Herrnhut for SOIP graduation. I was chosen to give a short testimony of my experience in SOIP.

Just days before I sat in that dining hall listening to my friends teach on revelations that they received throughout the school. Now, I am the type of person to always see how I could have done something better before seeing what was actually accomplished in me and through me. This last week with my school God was faithful in completely crushing my thoughts of shortcomings by illuminating the growth seen in my friends and myself. He tore down walls, shined light on gifts, revealed our authority to trample on lies and freedom in standing on truth!

I stood in front of my classmates, leaders, staff members and my friends, as well as family and friends watching online and it sunk in more than ever before. I have been set free. One of the first lectures we had in SOIP I remember our speaker saying, “You didn’t come to this school to learn more about prayer. You will learn more about prayer, but you came to this school to know the Father in a deeper way”. He was incredibly right. I mean I guess he would know what comes out of the school after doing it for countless years. But he was REALLY right. Haha. And in knowing the Father, there is freedom. I think the day that it really clicked was when I was reading the book we were reading as a school, Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets. A man was telling a story about an experience in Guatemala and how he was super nervous about praying for this little girl to be healed in front of so many people. What if God doesn’t show up, he thought. Well God showed up, the girl was healed, revival was started and it was great! That day he recognized that there was no need for him to be nervous or fearful. He only had to be obedient as he heard God leading him and the rest was out of his hands. The statement that was carved into my heart from this story was this.

We don’t have to produce anything, but rather we distribute, as the disciples did with the loaves and fishes. (Matthew 14:17-19) Our calling and function is not to replace God, but to release Him.

And just because it impacted me so much he went on to say.

It Liberates us from intimidation and emboldens us to know that:

The Producer simply wants to distribute through us.

The Intercessor wants to intercede through us.

The Mediator wants to mediate through us.

The Representative wants to represent through us.

The Go-between wants to go between through us.

The Victor wants His victory enforced through us.

The Minister of reconciliation has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

My entire life it has been far too easy for me to be the most critical of myself without any grace. Far to easy to beat myself up and kick myself when I was on the ground because I didn’t measure up. Especially when it came to my relationship with Christ. A lot of times it didn’t look like much of a relationship at all. It was Christ finishing the work on the cross and me trying to re-do the work in my own strength, but failing and failing and failing. I realized this pattern before, but never seemed to shake it. And not to say that I won’t struggle here and there, but the truth, for freedom I have been set free, has been rooted the deepest it has ever gone in my heart and I know it is my Father’s will to continue to deepen this truth, to deepen His gospel in my heart and yours. On the cross He has completed the work, He only wants a relationship with us because He loves us and the consequence out of this intimacy is the release of what He has completed. Through prayer it finally clicked. Pressing into this secret place of intimacy with my God I was able to claim the freedom that was freely given when Jesus Christ died and resurrected. The best part is this lives within me. This is above circumstances and situations of this world. Nothing can touch the freedom I have in Christ. I can’t really explain this freedom fully, but because Christ lives in me I am able to release this freedom to others. For freedom I have been set free, not only freedom for myself, but freedom for others as well.

A great way to try this freedom out is on outreach with friends, meeting strangers, and introducing them to the same freedom that was won for them on the cross. This overwhelming freedom that you really can’t keep to yourself.  As most may know I am on outreach now. Traveling throughout Germany, not to work or to produce anything, but to release to others what was so freely released to me. When we recognize the treasure that Christ is in us we have the power to set others free just as Christ has set us free. No striving, no measuring, simply being. Freedom =)