Entering the Holy Wild of God
GK Chesterton wrote: “And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.” God created us for freedom and the abundant life. Become what you were intended to be; this is true freedom. Its inside you where God lives, wild and free. Therefore, throw off everything that binds and enter into the Holy Wild of God.
The Holy Wild of God and True Freedom in Christ
What is True Freedom?
Christianity is not intended to be a set of rules. It is not a moral religion. In other words, the purpose of Christianity is not to bind us up, but to set us free. Christ came not to make us good, but to make us holy – to make us into His likeness.
Morality cannot bring you salvation, it will never bring you everlasting life with the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the focus of Christianity is not what you can’t do, but rather, what it will do for you. Christ will set you free to become who you truly were created to be: an adopted son or daughter of God.
Freedom is not about external choices. External choices bind us, they limit us to the choices that are given to us.
Freedom in Christ and True Freedom
Jesus Christ did not come to punish us, but to set us free. John wrote in his epistle there is no fear in love; perfect love casts out all fear because fear is about punishment. God does not want to punish us. God wants to set us free. He wants to help us throw off all the shackles that bind us up so that we can run wild and free.
We tend to think about freedom as an external Democratic type thing:
- Choosing between choice A and choice B.
- Buying this or buying that.
- Doing this or doing that.
- Living here or living there.
- Believing this or believing that.
Freedom has become all about external choices. But these external choices are only the illusion of freedom. They make us think that we’re free to make choices but we’re actually limited by those choices. Therefore, the choices that we make, and the choices we don’t make affect us in some way.
The external choices are actually a method of keeping us bound up, keeping us enslaved. True freedom is the freedom to become who God has always intended us to be. It’s not about external choices but about an internal state. True freedom is finding God inside of you, and having Him enlighten you as to the true nature of your person.
False Personas and Our True Identity
We often have several different personas that we put out into the world. We have the persona that we show the wider world, like our co-workers, and the people we run into on a daily life. Likewise, we have a second persona that is seen by only our closest family and friends. Finally, we have another persona that we show ourselves – this is the mask that we put on of the person we we try to convince ourselves we are. But there is a fourth persona: the one that God sees, and this is our true person. This is who we truly were created to be.
Entering the Holy Wild of God in True Freedom
The church today has become utterly too tame. Contemporary Christianity itself has become utterly too tame. Rather than taking risks and meeting a living and fierce God, we would rather deal with Him on our terms, inside neatly built boxes and walls. But God desires to break down those boxes and have us meet Him as the Person who He truly is: the Holy and Wild God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the only truly free being.
This is God’s desire. He wants us to step out of our comfort zones and into the Holy Wild where He lives and dwells. As Paul says: “in Him we live and move and have our being.” If we do not step within that Holy and Wild God, then we cease to truly live. We only begin to really live when we dwell and move within Him. But this takes time and effort.
One of my favorite quotes is by St. Macarius the Great who said: “the longest journey in life is the twelve inches from the head to the heart.” We need to move outside of our narrow confines of thought and delve into the mystery of who God is. We need to meet Him in the heart. By the heart, I do not mean a place of feeling and emotion, feeling an emotion is actually the domain of the head.
What I mean by the heart is what the ancient church referred to as the Nous. The Nous is the center of our souls, the place where we meet God, the place where we once again walk with Him in paradises. This is the space we need to move into so that we can move out of our out of the narrow and safe confines we have built. This is what God desires.
Transfiguration and the Holy Wild of God
Our faith is not the set of rules, the do’s and don’ts that we seem to so focus on in Christianity today. The purpose of the commandments for creating space, so that we might meet ourselves and our God. And in Him, run wild and free. The commandments are a means of throwing off all the shackles that bind us, sp that we might come to a meeting place with God. For God who desires to change hearts and minds. He desires to transfigure us.
The great miracle of the transfiguration, wasn’t that God shone with light brighter than the Sun ,but that man could shine with the same light. Jesus was truly God and truly man. He took human nature and forever combined it with the Divine nature. The two are inseparable. Therefore, everything that was natural for Him on earth is something that will be natural for us as well. We also can be transfigured and set free. We can shine with light brighter than the Sun, but we have to be willing to step out of our comfort zone.
When you go into the wild, it is a place of beauty, of abundance, and of life – but it is a dangerous place things can go wrong. In the wild we can die, we can get lost. The same is true of the Holy Wild of God. A genuine spiritual life isn’t safe, its dangerous. People die, some go mad, but those who persevere find unmatched beauty, love, and communion.
Personally, I would rather risk losing my life in the Holy Wild where I can meet a Holy God, and become truly authentic and free, rather than die a stagnation within a lukewarm faith. Our churches need to become wild again. Step into the Holy Wild of God and there find Life. Life abundant and free.
To learn more about true freedom and entering into the Holy Wild of God, watch the video!
Join us as we strive to create a more peaceful world as we seek to meet the Creator, through the creation. Strive with us to develop an authentic Trinitarian communion, as we honor our God, demonstrate love to one another, and show compassion upon all of nature.
Want to learn more about entering the Holy Wild of God? Then join us on one of our wild worship gatherings.
Rewild Church meets in Pittstown, NJ and in various other locations throughout Hunterdon County New Jersey.
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Christian Ecology, Theology, and Holistic Herbalism
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Pittstown, NJ (Hunterdon County New Jersey)