Freedom Reigns in This Place

Please continue to pray for freedom in our valley in Brazil. Freedom that can only come from a true relationship with Jesus Christ. I was saddened to see the thousands of people celebrate Good Friday here in our area without hardly a mention of His resurrction three days later. The church in our area relates so much with a dead savior instead of a risen Lord. The legalistic, controlling and religious spirit wants people to relate to the death and not the One who is alive and wants His people to live in freedom. I found this excerpt from Dick Nicholson and it describes our Easter weekend to a tee.

But they only have half the gospel—the other half is the Easter half. If by His death I am saved from sin, then by His life I am
saved from sinning! There is pardon, but unlike the Catholic who feels condemned to repeat the cycle of sin, confession, and forgiveness, there is good news—Jesus lives, and because He lives, we can have new life which overcomes our sinful inclination and tendencies! There is pardon, but there is also power. There is forgiveness, but there is also freedom.

And the sociological implications of the gospel are powerful when it comes to defining the male and female roles for those who live in our region. In the machismo role, man is forever the philanderer, weak, and vulnerable. Why? Because his role model, the Jesus he knows, is weak, dying, lying, if you will, in the lap of his mother in a death swoon. The female’s marianismo model is Mary, mother of Jesus—strong, faithful, true, loving, caring, the one to whom they go for help. Thus the female is considered the strong and faithful one, while the male is weak and vulnerable.

Then one day a new message is heard across the land of the conquistadores—He is Risen! Jesus is no longer the weak and dying one, but He is the Conqueror of death, the Risen One, the Overcoming and Triumphant One! Now the male has a new model—one who is strong, who does not need to sink to the low and beggarly elements. Because Jesus lives, we live also! And we see the New Man, filled with resurrection life, take his place in the home and in society—strong, Spirit-filled, an overcomer—because Christ lives in his heart by faith!