July 19

“There is no freedom without love and no love without freedom....Making love our aim is quite simply, giving God the freedom to act as He would act.”  Eugenia Price, Make Love Your Aim, Preface

I’ve been exploring for sometime what freedom in Christ is all about.  Eugenia has pointed out that freedom and love are “two sides of the same coin”.  I had come to this conclusion just before I found her book “waiting” for me on a sidewalk bookcase in front of the used book store I frequent, but instead of “love” I called it by another name--giving.  On the way to the bookstore I was listening to a Christian radio program on gift ideas.  It pricked my heart.  I realized that while I give of my money I give nothing of myself outside of my family anymore.  After seeing Eugenia’s book (all the books were just $1.74!) I decided to keep looking for more bargains.  I found another Eugenia Price book!  Now I was really encouraged so I continued browsing through the other racks.  There I found a book entitled “Giving Yourself Away” waiting for me.  I immediately realized that God had answered an unformed prayer---He’d given me the desire of my heart, which was to break it open and give of myself.  He’d caught my attention with the name of a favorite author so that I would find this other book to help me start the process of giving.  Giving and loving are one and the same just as loving and freedom can’t be separated.  You can never fully experience freedom from self unless you are able to give self away. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16

February 28

“If we are holding onto old guilts and pretending to ourselves and others that we are just so ‘low’ that we feel God can’t forgive us for ‘this one,’ we had better stop provoking Him......We don’t mean to turn in upon ourselves.  But when we carry unnecessary guilt, we do.  We are so painfully aware of us that we lose our awareness of those around us....We ‘limit the Holy One of Israel’ (Psalm 78:41) when we clutch our old thought patterns.....”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 2/28

As I read Eugenia’s words I thought, “I’m really more guilty of the opposite--holding unforgiveness in my heart against others.”  But I found myself being drawn back to Eugenia’s words and rereading them several times and came to realize that unforgiveness against others was the same as unforgiveness against myself. My unforgiveness towards others was because I hadn’t totally claimed God’s cleansing for myself.  I say this because if I really saw myself as ‘perfect’ (for this is how God sees me in Christ) how others treated me would not matter.  If their behavior towards me did not affect my self-worth, there would be no need for forgiveness.  I would see their behavior as due to something within themselves that caused it.  I may not like the affect it has on my life, but if I am “hid in Christ” I would trust that God is using it to my benefit and again have no cause to have any unforgiveness toward that person.   It really does just come down to pride--my inability to let God love me.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.....He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”  John 3:16, 18