Each person must focus his/her own experience related to God. This is aided by Scripture and prayer, by Christian ministers for the experiences witnessed and modeled by believers. The world is interested in its societies, more than its individuals. God is interested first in the individuals. Societies follow. Both God and mankind are interested in societies, but the matter of priority is vital. Each person is responsible for self, but the interest and necessity for society means high regard for society, and how it functions. The point here is that the first order is with the individual, the specific denominator of the created universe. Because of that, the individual should not have a barrier in his approach to life, except for the fair perception that he/she is not going to interfere with the right of every other individual to be free to follow his or her own star. This makes the matter of freedom not only a life factor, but a spiritual one. The Christian stands for freedom of the individual soul, even in an oppressive society. The most oppressive physical barrier to freedom, in the human context is slavery, slavery to anything. For God there is no such thing as slavery, so he would never favor it in his context. The slave in the household of a human being is free in God’s eyes. His beliefs in God put him on a level plane meant for all persons. A person is no man’s property. Slavery, oppressive in human society, is anathema in the context of heaven. Insightful Christian slaves knew that they were free in God – detected in some of their songs and statements.
Freedom is a significant factor in experiencing God. Freedom ties the person to responsibility, as any value ties us to responsibility related to values. As a free person I desire to be treated with honesty, so I must be honest myself. If not, to that degree I have lost some freedom and am punished in the very act of dishonesty. I am no longer personally free in that truth if I have violated the personal freedom of anyone. When truth is violated, so is freedom. One of the reasons for education is to act in truth, so as to be free. Falsehood defies truth. God loves the failing advocate of freedom, but does not disregard oversights. He is aware of the context of the failure so to decide the extent of his treatment of the matter. Love is not the point here as love is not the point when a recalcitrant child must be disciplined by a loving parent.
Love informs me to accept people, to be gracious to them, to help where I am needed related to the needs of persons, all of whom God loves. We like to trace back to our human parents, and that enhances duty. Some theorists are trying to find balance, given the varieties of human beings and factors that form them. Perhaps there are no known parents for a child. The matter of origins may, in the future, take on more exotic ideas, dividing the human race in physiology. We make life more complex, more difficult.
The Christian concern is to take persons where they are at point of contact and discover what is identified as good life for them. They can find a good life, in the human context, if they are careful to follow the rules of nature and effective mutual relationships. But this is not enough to determine the aftermath of mortality. The world argues for no certainty about values, but immediately insists on values for the life of society. So laws are passed. They can’t cover everything. Christians add faith values which can find source in God and can be taught. Christians insist on values, gifted from God, who provides infinite life from himself. In this is built character. The citizenship for the kingdom of God is identified with values, real and useful for now in faith, redemptive faith that prepares the person for the values related to God’s kingdom, an infinite citizenship. Heaven’s values can be practiced in natural life. Those values are revealed to the human race in Scripture. To keep them offers some evidence of the faith of God in the faithful human being. Works of righteousness are not the redemptive factor, but they follow it. They may precede the redemptive experience for insightful persons seeking to gain an effective and satisfactory society, but they are not redemptive. Righteousness that is lasting relates to identity with God in Christ. The value of that righteousness is found in the holiness of God, so is generated from a larger source than merely desire for social order and comfort. It is a citizenship born of humble declaration of the inability of mortals to relate to God without accepting Christ for qualification, identity and citizenship. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020