One time, my teenage cousin broke a tumbler in the house, they’d previously warned her about being careless with how she lifted them, but that day too, she carelessly removed it from where it was and playfully placed it somewhere that caused it to roll and fall.

She immediately started crying cause she knew she’d done it too often to not get told off for it this time, after I gave her time to mourn and meditate over her carelessness in tears, I told her not to cry and that if my mum or anyone asked who did it, she should say it was me. Not because I wouldn’t get told off, but because I didn’t have the track-record of doing it incessantly and to be honest, it was my parents house, I had no fear, even thinking of the worst that my mum would do, Because she’s my mum.

So she stopped crying, I took the blame and life carried on.

Over the last week, I stumbled on a few threads on twitter from people who were describing how “freer” they felt since leaving the faith. When I see content like that, my first instinct is to go to the replies on the thread, cause I’m curious to know how many more feel like this and is anyone offering them solutions in any way?

So I opened up the replies and my heart broke further, many more reaffirming the person from their own experiences on how life became easier since they closed the ‘religious’ chapter of their lives.

I’ve been trained by the Holy Spirit not to engage people in public, physically or on social media. The Holy Spirit has helped me see the love-response as correcting or rebuking my brother or sister in private, so no, I made no comment on the thread, neither did I engage with any of the replies.

But it made it clearer that we needed to shout a bit more of the true nature of God and His Spirit in us, so people will stop confusing legalism with relationship.

It is also important to note that some had no issues with legalism actually, they just hadn’t died enough to self to accept to live at the standard that Christ has called us to and so, they too mixed among those struggling with legalism and called a relationship with God, bondage.

This morning I’m studying Romans 8:15 and I’m hurt all over again by those threads, because they are poor reflections of the God of this kingdom and the Spirit we carry within. Not in any way to invalidate someone else’s experience of walking with God, but I’m convinced that the believer, wherever in the world have only one reaction to the real nature of God, and that reaction is loving reverence, that constrains you to live a life that pleases Abba. Remember Paul said it? He said “the love of God constrains me”, this constraining love isn’t a leash love that allows you live only within a certain diameter. Rather, it is a committed love that screams ‘I choose the way of Jesus over any other way, including what I might will’, because sometimes your will is even yet to be conformed to that of Jesus.

So today, I wanted to remind someone who’s currently in that place of struggle and questioning, I want you to know that;

“The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.””-Romans 8:15

I could take any blame in my parents house for anything because I don’t ever live in crippling fear of what they could do to me. Even if I myself have done it, I know that I will repent, get told off nonetheless, but the love does not cease.

The spirit of God gives us this same ‘audacity’ of fearlessness. Not because you take God for granted, but because you know your God and His nature, that He’ll always be Abba to you. And I say this very lightly because reverential fear is necessary for an effective walk with God. I’ve seen in my own life that sometimes, it is love that constrains me like Paul, other times, it is actually reverential fear that constrains me.

There’s no need to perform in your Fathers house, what’s most required is the yielding and surrendering, so that we become conformed to Jesus’ image.

There’s actually a different kind of freedom in this kingdom, the best kind even, because being able to restrain yourself when you have the freedom to do otherwise is actually the best evidence of true freedom.

So live freely, but not as unwise but as wise. Ephesians 5:15