Freedom in a Large Place

The following wonderfully illuminating words are from a message by Clinton White.  Anyone who has come into the living realization of what he is talking about knows that this is the voice of experience.  This is good news.  This is the GOSPEL:

"A zoo in Germany purchased a bear from a traveling circus. For all the years of his life with the circus he had been in a cage twelve feet long, and had lived walking twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward. But this zoo in Germany had different accommodations that were luxurious. It had a beautiful rocky place for him with woods and a lake where he could swim and splash around to his heart’s content. He could roam over several acres.

"Now, wouldn’t you think this bear would be so happy and relieved? But when they let him out of the cage, what did he do? He walked twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward, twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward!

"They tried to lure him out of that pattern with food and water, but the bear stayed within the limits of his old life. He was incarcerated by a memory inscribed upon his brain, by limitations that no longer existed.

"The Bible says, 'If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed' (John 8:36). God has opened the door of our cage and He has let us out, but we keep on walking twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward. We remain incarcerated by something inscribed in our memory; we are held prisoner to limitations that no longer exist.

"You don’t need to relate to God anymore by law, by something given to Moses and written on a stone. The Bible teaches, 'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ' (John 1:17). God has let us out into a larger place, and we are not confined by former limitations. But  . . . we continue to walk twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward. Why do we do that? We are living as though we are in a cage. But that cage has been taken out and cast into the sea; we’re not in it anymore, we’re out of it. We are free; WE ARE FREE!

"So what about you? Jesus says, 'You’re free.' You no longer need to pace the limited confines of the old covenant, you’re no longer caged in the old ways. That’s gone. It perished on the cross, it is finished. Isn’t that what Jesus said, 'It is finished'?

"I want you to realize WHO YOU ARE! You have been purchased by the greatest price ever offered for anything in all of history. Because of this, the door of your cage has been opened and you’re out in a large place—A LARGE PLACE! (Psalm 18:19).

"Stop acting as though you are still marching through the wilderness with Moses, still under the rod of the law. Because you are in grace, you can function now in the energies of God’s love. You are no longer a prisoner—not just to your old sinful nature, but—you are no longer a prisoner to the old covenant.

"As long as you struggle to relate to God by old covenant means (by the law), you’ll only stir up an awareness of your iniquity, and you’ll never have the clear identity comprehension that God wants you to possess. And your enemy Satan will point out your every flaw.

"Satan wants to bring you back under the old covenant where he can dominate your life by pointing out evil things in your heart and mind to bring you into a terrible, ungodly maze with no escape, trying to make yourself righteous under the law. This will cause you to become judgmental. You’ll develop a set of standards that you can live with, and you’ll be somewhat secure if you’ve kept them on a particular day; and then you’ll judge everyone else who doesn’t live up to those standards.

"Judgment is a boomerang. It comes back to you, and you’ll get guilty again because you’re judging other people. So you’ll live a life of going from a mountaintop to being in a valley, a life of feeling miserable one day and feeling half all right the next because you’ve lived somewhat up to those standards. That’s just like the bear pacing twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward.

"That isn’t what God has called you to do. He has called you to be free. Not freedom in lawlessness, but to live under the royal law of love—a new way, a new door open, a new freedom. God trusts you. He’s taken away the means of the old condemnation.

"The Bible teaches that 'there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus' (Rom.8:1). That’s not God’s finger pointing at you; that is the devil. God points at Jesus. The Father points at the cross. He brings you into the Holy of Holies and shows you that the veil has been rent in two. The Father says, 'Come boldly unto the throne of grace, that you may find grace to help in time of need' (Heb.4:16). He says, 'Let him that is athirst come' (Rev.22:17).

"Do you think it’s the Father who makes you feel worthless, who makes you cringe back and causes you to feel unworthy? Do you think it’s the Father who points at you and says, 'Go until you clean that up!'? No, no. The Father says, 'Come.' Jesus says, 'Come.' The Spirit says, 'Come.'You can learn the difference between the voice of the arch enemy speaking down there in the realm of soulishness and the voice of the living God ringing in the area of spirituality. He says, 'Come. You’re out of your cage.'

"If these truths have penetrated and gotten down inside your heart, then you’ll live like a new person, because you’ll relate to God in an entirely different way.

"The Bible says, 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son' (Gal. 4:30). Abraham attempted in his flesh to bring forth the promises of God in his life (Genesis, Chapter 16). Your attempt to relate to God under the old covenant is bondwoman, it is slavery. God says, 'Cast that out!'

"Now you relate to God through the cross. You are free. The door of your cage is open: 'They shall go in and out, and find pasture' (John 10:9).

"That’s what Jesus said and that’s where He’s taken you and that’s where you are now. You’re going to go by what God says, because the supreme reality in this world is the word of God.

"If you stand before God and every fiber of your being feels guilty and condemned, and God pounds the gavel of judgment down and says, 'Innocent,' now just what is the supreme reality? Some old, pious pharisee of a preacher can point at you and say, 'Guilty,' but what is the reality? It’s God ringing, 'Innocent, innocent, innocent.' The devil can point at you and say, 'Guilty,' but God says, 'Innocent, innocent, innocent.' If your heart condemns you and says, 'Guilty, guilty, guilty,' the Bible says that 'if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart' (1 John 3:20)—'Innocent, innocent, innocent.'

"No longer—like the bear—do you walk twelve feet forward and twelve feet backward. You live in freedom now—in a LARGE PLACE!"