strengthen your body + calm your mind + open your heart + connect with God
Flow Description
This 30 min. freedom-focused practice includes some more challenging options for the experienced yogi with lots of stretching and gentle movement for the beginner yoga!
We study a conversation Jesus had with some religious leaders about living in real freedom. The people he’s talking to push back and say – we’ve never been slaves! What do you mean we need to be set free? The irony in their statement is that these people had been enslaved for centuries, and at the very moment of their conversation with Jesus were subjects of the Roman Empire. They were too proud (or blind?) to see the obvious truth of their earthly identity. But more than that, they miss Jesus’ deeper point about real heart freedom, not just political freedom.
How often do we do that in our own lives? Brush off all this talk about freedom, telling ourselves we go to church and we sometimes read our Bibles and go to Bible Studies, so we’re fine! But Jesus is calling us to a deeper freedom. He shows us a better way, shows us he’s trustworthy, promises us we won’t be disappointed, and invites us into a new way of living.
“Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. ‘If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.’ Surprised, they said, ‘But we’re descendants of Abraham. We’ve never been slaves to anyone. How can you say, ‘The truth will free you’?’ Jesus said, ‘I tell you the most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through…” {John 8:31-36}
“Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are – face to face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” {2 Corinthians 3:16-18}
Kris Valloton says, “an idol is anything you have to check with before you say yes to God.” What are you checking in with that’s holding you back from saying YES fully? Your bank account? Your career plans? What other people will think? Your schedule?
