My Chains are Gone by Susan Shull

We sing a song at church that brings tears to my eyes every time. The chorus goes like this…….

“My chains are gone.
I’ve been set free.
My God, my Savior has ransomed me.
And like a flood, his mercy rains,
unending love, amazing grace.”

Besides the obvious reasons, I think this song touches me so profoundly because I have struggled so with the balance of do’s and don’ts of the Christian life. When Brad and I first got married, we knew we wanted to make church a huge part of our lives. We both loved the Lord, so that wasn’t a problem. The problem was….where do we worship? We tried different congregations in Charleston, Mattoon, and in Ohio when we lived there. I was totally happy in some of them. Brad wasn’t. He was happy. I wasn’t. We argued more about this issue than about anything else. (Wasn't that the “Christian” thing to do? Ha!) A lot of the difficulty boiled down to a congregation’s philosophy of freedom as a Christian. Do we have any, or are we to follow a prescribed lists of “thou shalls” and “shall nots”? Did being a Christian mean we had to be weirdos, or just different from the world? We truly wanted to do the right thing, to be in God’s will. But what was it?

We finally decided to quit listening to well-meaning people around us and go to the source. We had to make our faith our own and do what we felt the Bible was teaching us and not follow the words of men. The great legalists of the Bible, the Pharisees, thought they had all the answers for every man, but Jesus set them straight, didn’t he?

I personally began to study the book of Galatians where I began to discover that true freedom can come only through Christ. I truly started to accept the idea that living one’s life for God gives us our freedom. It doesn’t take it away from us. Brad did his own studying and God eventually led us to the congregation at Scott Avenue. The journey wasn’t easy but was definitely worth it.

God continues to remind me of this freedom since I ironically find myself being a little bit like a Pharisee towards others at times. My latest reminder came this week. This summer, I have been studying Christianity 101, the book Rachel Willis has been using in her Wednesday night group. This author states that there are really only a few commandments in the New Testament and most of them involve loving God, your neighbor, and your enemies. Keeping those should keep me busy for the next 100 years or so.

There are also some guidelines: Avoid things that aren’t beneficial or positive. Don’t do things that are addictive to you. Consider the effect your actions may have on others. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? What a world this would be if we all followed these commandments and guidelines! Kind of sounds like heaven.

So, the next time someone says that Christianity is all about rules and regulations, just remember that is Satan’s old trick. The only way to be truly free is by the “blood of the Lamb.” To borrow a phrase from our preacher……..And all God’s people said, Amen!