Balloons Filled with Lies
Balloons Filled with Lies
"You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:31-32 (CEB)
The freedom of knowing the truth. That's a beautiful reality. The question is, "How often do we experience this freedom of knowing the truth." Jesus was speaking to many in the temple before He spoke these crucial words. He was teaching on His identity, His mission on earth, and proclaiming the unity of the Father and Son. He continues to speak about truth, to which the Jews react by claiming that they have never been slaves. This is not only a denial and forgetting of Egypt, but a questioning of the Messiah's declaration of Truth. Jesus speaks of slavery to sin, but freedom that is found in the Son alone.
It's interesting. We can read stories like this and think, "How did they miss it so badly?" The reality is that we do this everyday and cover it with compromising language, demeanor, behavior, and thoughts. We allow false identity to take place of our true identity. We give up inheritance for a lack of inheritance. We sit in bondage, filling ourselves with fear because it's easier than leaving our chains behind in openness, vulnerability, and love.
The Gospel truth is that Grace became incarnate for us to be reinstated in eternal relationship with God through the ultimate gift of life, death, and life again (in abundance and in Christ Jesus). We are new in this transforming reality. We are given a new paradigm, a new mind, a new hope, a new reality. We have access to the fullness of the Godhead. We have access to heaven's resource right now. We have access. We are children, and if children heirs, and if heirs, then co-heirs. We have an abundance indeed.
Yet, minuscule nudges from neighbor feel like shoves off of the straight and narrow. *You do not belong.* Whispers in our hearts of illusions tempt us to dance with shimmering partners. *You are not beautiful.* Hopeless and dream-killing entertainment releases false paradigms and we shift our altars from Christ to creation. *Do whatever feels right.* We worship idols, namely ourselves; feeding our pride and imagination with reactions outside of destiny. Reality and fantasy are at the tip of our tongues, the edge of our fingertips and yet we seemingly always reach for the most convenient option in what is not real.
THEN, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
What teaching are we called to remain faithful to? LOVE. Love God. Love neighbor. Love self. Live out love. Live in love. Live from love. We must receive, give, and uniquely be attentive the reality of God's love. Anything less is less than what you have been created for.
Recently, I had a vision from the Lord in prayer. I was sitting and just listening. I received an image of myself on a lawn chair. I got up from the chair and started attaching balloons on the chair. It was clear I wanted to make a floating lawn chair (who wouldn't?) and that balloons were my medium in this valiant effort. The problem was that whenever I would attach balloons it wouldn't fly. The best thing that happened was when a balloon string slipped off and the chair started floating. I then realized, I need to cut off the other balloons. As I did the chair started flying.
I felt the Lord speak in this time and tell me the balloons were filled with lies. They were filled with false images, words, and illusions I had believed about God, others, and myself. The moment I started cutting strings that attached me to these lies I began to hear the truth. *You were made to fly.* *You are redeemed.* *You belong, beloved.*
I believe the point here is that we all have our metaphoric balloons that we are attaching to our lives that are filled with lies. Through the Lord we are empowered to cut off these unhealthy attachments and fly, run, and walk further than we can imagine. I believe this cutting is an active participation in the power of the present Godhead, alive in us.
So, when the lies creep in, when you hear the whispers trying to defeat you, when you are attacked with fantasy illusions of distraction, remember. Remember that the Shepherd's voice is good (Jn.10). Remember that you are clothed in victory (Is. 61). Remember that you are called to throw off distractions, fix your eyes on Jesus, and run the race (Heb. 12).
My question is why run when you can fly?
"All the fullness of deity lives in Christ's body. And you have been filled by Him, who is the head of every ruler and authority." Colossians 2:9-10
*You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.*
