Room Shortage

Jesus: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples...and the truth will set you free. ...Yet...you have no room for my word... you are unable to hear what I say... The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." (Jn. 8:31-32, 37, 43, 47)

I want to be free. Jesus called people to belief to free us from the guilt of sin, and to discipleship to free us from the power of sin. Knowing Jesus (the Truth) and living his Way is freedom! It is a life of breathing in wide-open spaces. It is being released to live at full capacity, to fly, to flourish in the life God really meant for me.

But there are enemies of freedom. And some of the worst may lie within my own heart. There may be no room for his word in my life. My inner space may be cluttered with any number of things: my own preconceptions that I am unwilling to rethink, my prideful grip on what I want (and think I need), my run-of-the-mill busyness that tunes him out. It could even be--as was the case in this text--that I may set myself in league with the evil one with a greedy, hateful or condescending attitude.
Conservative, law-keeping worshippers of God in league with the evil one? That's a little scary. And it wasn't because they honestly misunderstood some doctrine. It was because they were protecting their power and pride instead of humbly seeking to learn and be shaped by God for his own sovereign rule.

I will check and re-check my own heart and ask, "Do I have an open heart? Does the hard disk of my life have ample capacity for what Jesus wants to download?" It's the path to freedom! I want to breathe in wide open spaces, not stay locked in the musty closets that the world (or even the church) may try to shove me into.

Lord, speak. Your follower is listening.