I was at a new years Eucharist today when a penny that has been haunting me for some while (in certain ways years) fell into place.

For a while, I would probably be have been considered a humanist, that is believing in the moral foundation of Jesus message but not in much else.

A lot of atheistic philosophy falls into that same area.

One thought is that freedom can only be gained when we gain control of our ID, our basest instincts.

We are slaves to ourselves until we gain control of ourselves.
So freedom is gained by control from ourselves.

Its all on us.

This plays into the secular idea that we as a species can be moral without a god.

In some very inconsistent patchy way we can.

Then today during eucharist my pastor,  paraphrased romans 8:15 – 16

“Abba,  which means father, takes us by the holy spirit, from slave to a son.”

So humanism teaches us we move from immorality and captive to our base emotions and drive to freedom and morality by means of our own self will.

In Christianity we move from immorality to being born again as a child of god.

Him being our father, who keeps his flock safe, shows them direction, correction, love and attention.

You see, We are under the care of our father, and he looks after you as a father should look after his children.

We are not alone, separate, exposed.

We must step towards being in his flock, but once in place we are not alone.

We know we cant do it alone, he knows that too.

His spirit and message and the body of the church constantly reminds, corrects and directs our lives.

Set against that the bar is set much higher, and the demands greater.

But so are the rewards for trying.