Some churches are anti freedom in christ

I have been to a lot of different Churches in my lifetime. I'm sure many of you have frequented a few yourself. Over time, I've found myself inadvertently experimenting with many different denominations: Pentecostal, Methodist, Baptist and Apostolic. Never really finding what I believed to have been my church home until I was 29 years old. You can only imagine the many sermons I have sat through trying to understand what I should be doing in life so that I can atone for things I have done wrong and enhance the quality of my life.

Ultimately, most of the churches preached the same message.

"If you go to the club, drink alcohol, have sex before marriage, quarrel with your parents etc you're going to hell". The list of what you couldn't do was long enough to leave me wondering what could I actually do that genuinely brought me joy while also still honoring my faith ? Could God really hear me? Or did I need the church itself to be the conduit between God and I in order for me to have a knowing as to how I am supposed to live? It felt like I was sinning just by waking up in the morning until I realized that most churches are "anti freedom in Christ". Think about who Jesus is. Jesus is the Messiah meaning the promised deliverer! What did he die for? He died for our sins, mistakes, transgressions. Jesus even died for the things you haven't done yet that he knew you would need forgiveness for.

If you've accepted Jesus Christ and you acknowledge him as your savior, why should you allow yourself to fall back into captivity by believing that you haven't been forgiven? The reality is you will make more mistakes probably even greater than the ones you have already made up until you die. Jesus's death went according to the will of God. Thus, there being an inheritance for us. Freedom, is included in our inheritance.

After doing my own soul searching, I began to see that most churches were actually preaching condemnation by not putting emphasis on our newfound privilege thanks to Jesus making the selfless sacrifice for us all. Most Churches appear to be without flaw and we all know that can't be accurate given the fact that we are all human and we will eventually make a mistake. Here are a few scriptures that stuck out to me:

Galatians 5:1: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

Galatians 5:13: "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as a opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another". 

How many times have you gone to church and felt like you were listening to a never ending speech about how far you have fallen from grace and the balm of Jesus hardly being squeezed in? It seems the only remedy churches will offer in those cases are membership. Jesus came swinging doors open and churches came along like, “Okay but let’s add some rules… and a dress code… and a hierarchy… and silence… and shame… and control.”

That ain’t the same gospel.

A lot of churches:

• Confuse control with “order”

• Confuse silencing trauma with “forgiveness”

• Confuse obedience to leadership with obedience to God

• Confuse discipline with domination

• Confuse image management with holiness

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Jesus was constantly freeing people from:

• religious leaders

• rigid systems

• shame cycles

• purity performances

• spiritual gaslighting

And modern churches? Lowkey rebuilding the same Pharisee playbook with better music and lighting. My question to you is do you feel as if any church you've visited truly embraced you as a free individual in Christ? Or have you felt condemned?