Freedom

Everybody wants it.

Fact is, many people think they have it. It's actually this desire for 'freedom' that many people use as an excuse for rejecting the God of the Bible. God's too constricting. They view doing their own thing as the path to true freedom.

But is it?

Experience says it not.

Just look at the lives of many of the people who proclaim their own freedom the loudest. Very often they are not free at all - they are enslaved by a desire for people's approval, by greed, anger, pornography, lust.

In rejecting God for one's own freedom, it's like they are saying they want to be free, then walk straight into a prison cell, closing the bars behind them, locking it and tossing the key.

We know that just from a quick glance at the world around us, but even more importantly we know that from the Bible itself.

"Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slavesof the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to righteousness?"

The irony is that sins says it will lead you to freedom but only leads you deeper and deeper into bondage.

Bitterness says "give in to me, you'll be your own person, you 'll show them...." and clamps the handcuffs around your wrists, chains you to the wall, making it impossible for you to ever move forward.

Pride says "give in to me, puff yourself up, you'll become a big, big man..." while taking a club, knocking you to the ground and making you very, very small.

Lust says, "give in to me, drink deeply of what I have to offer, and you'll find life itself..." while secretly poisoning the drink itself, making it a drink of death.

I'm kind of harping on this because before a person comes to Christ for freedom he needs to see his bondage. Everybody serves a master. If you are not a believer no matter how loudly you may proclaim your freedom, in reality, you are a slave to a master who hates you and you simply do not have the power to do real, God-honoring, soul-satisfying good.

There's a freedom that is much better than the freedom to disobey and do what you want and that's the freedom to obey and do what God wants.

We see that kind of freedom on display for us throughout the gospels as we look at the life of Christ - a freedom to truly love others, to be courageous, to be hopeful in the worst of trials, to not be dominated by people's approval.

That kind of freedom is a gift.

Praise God! In Christ we find what we've always wanted.

"Christ suffered and died so that we might be set free from the law of sin and belong to Him..."