Archive article 8

3 keys of freedoml!

 

“Nothing to hide – nothing to prove – nothing to fear”

 

 The person who formulated these 3 keys was born in the slums of London. As a lad, recently emigrated from Ireland to London, Patrick  was shuffled from one orphanage to another.  It wasn’t hard to begin to smoke, drink, and slide down into the world of no-return. There didn’t seem to be a future. Quite incredibly, however, at the age of 17 he gave his life to Christ and the way out  of desperation started. Today, more than 50 years later, a professor of Japanese language and ancient literature, he has not changed his message one wit.

 

Freedom in Christ is such a wonderful gift that no matter where you are, in what situation you find yourself, there’s a courage which wells up from the inside because, as he loves to repeat: “There’s nothing to hide, nothing to prove and nothing to fear.”

 

And I could find no better way to sum-up the purpose of the sacrifices we read about in the first 7 chapters of Leviticus.

In the first 3 chapters we constantly phrases like

“. . . when any of you brings an offering” (Lev 1¹ , 2¹ , 3¹), he’s putting into practice a sacrifice God has asked of him.

He’s offering what Moses called “an offering. . . pleasing to the Lord “

(Lev  1^{9, 13,  17} , 2¹⁴ , 3^{5, 16} ).

Before God (and men!)  he now has nothing to hide!

God has received him. He’s accepted by God.

He no longer has to run away or hide his face. As Patrick said: “Nothing to hide”.

 

And the same is true of the sacrifices in chapters 4 and 5 of Leviticus. When the blood of the sacrificed animal is brought to the priest, he takes it and “sprinkles some of it seven times before the Lord, in front of the curtain of the sanctuary. . . in this way the priest will make atonement for the man’s sin and he will be forgiven” (Lev 4^{6 e 26}). 

 

What a fantastic freedom!

 

Someone is totally aware of their actual situation, of their secret addictions, of their hidden desperation and when he comes to God in the way God has prescribed in these two chapters, what a relief is his! The weight of a guilty conscience lifts just like the vapour icy film dissolves from the frozen windscreen. He’s free from all the vice and evil of the past and irreversibly pardoned by God.

He’s got nothing to prove to anybody! Nothing!

 

As if wanting to underline this magnificent freedom, in the book of Leviticus, in the next 2 chapters, 6-7, God makes it clear that “. . . anyone ceremonially clean may eat it

(viz. the meat of the sacrifice) “ (Lev 7¹⁹)

Overall it was only the priest who was invited to eat the meat offered in sacrifice to God.  However, on these particular occasions, when he repented of his sin and offered the appropriate sacrifice, he was told to stay inside the tabernacle and eat with the priest.

There was absolutely nothing to fear.

God had accepted him, and with the heart free from sin, he could enjoy life and not have to run away from anyone.

 

My question is this: “How many of us actually enjoy this sort of freedom and happiness in life?”

Isn’t it true that most of us are hiding secrets, big and small, in the cellars of our consciences? How often we are hiding things in our lives that we don’t want anyone to know anything about? There are things of which we are profoundly ashamed and which we repress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that no one will discover them. Daily we live playing ‘hide-and-seek’ as we put on our masks, act our routine performances of good social behaviour, and pretend that everything is all right, when we know that it is not! 

 

I don’t think any tears can be more precious than those which flow from our eyes as we give up our facade, our masks, and confess to God Himself the truths which we knew were hidden all along. This is a wonderful work of God’s Spirit who convicts us of our sin so that the blood of Jesus can wash us thoroughly. And when clean, what joy,. happiness and peace explodes in the depth of our person. We know beyond all doubt that there’s nothing to hide, nothing to prove, and nothing to fear! We know it – and everyone around us sees it!    

 

Dear reader, all the way through our Bible God’s freeing salvation is tangible.

Get in touch with us or any local evangelical church and begin your life

without anything to hide, prove or fear.

                                                                                           Pastor Paul Finch