True Freedom

What is freedom?



Is it the ability to do what you want, when you want? Is it the opportunity to express yourself without fear of censure? Is it the feeling you get when you run away from your kids for the night to sip cocktails with your friends?

TRUE freedom is a freedom that comes only from Christ.

In this life, we are in a constant struggle between wanting to do good and the desires to disregard all rules and do as we wish. We know that if we do the latter of the two, there will repercussions. Sometimes to others, and yet always to us. If you are a Christian, you know that breaking the "rules" is a sin. That sin will lead to permanent seperation from God. And yet, we all fail sometimes in our attempts to find our way thru this world to Him. We mess up. We hurt people. We withdraw from God or lie right to His face. And while we are in these bodies, we will always struggle with that, because that is the nature of flesh: to survive, by whatever selfish means necessary.

In fact, one could say that those selfish desires are the very reason we sin. We want so badly to survive. Even as we are living, breathing beings, we are struggling for survival on a physical AND spiritual level.

What is the one thing that every peson is afraid of? Death. Eternal seperation from what we know as life and what we know or desire of love. We all search after love. I say that what we really search after is eternal love. God's love. It is His love that we all are looking for. His love that we are all afraid of being without for eternity. And why shouldnt we be? He made us to love us. To be without that would be worse than death. If we are all going thru life, searching for His love, yet constantly sinning while in pursuit of it, couldnt we say that we all stumble because of FEAR of being without that love? We sin and are seperated. We sin because we are afraid of being seperated. We are locked up by this fear. We are prisoners. After all, you cant serve the Lord if you are bound in a dark prison of fear. You will never grow, never love and never rise above. We are stuck sinning.

What happens if you remove the seperation? Remove the sins? Then fear dissappears. The chains are removed. Well, Christ did that.

Christ came to pay a cost. Christ conquered death, once and for all, for all who believe. He is King and Saviour. He IS our redeemer, removing all our fear of death and the bondage created by that fear, which is expressed as sin. Therefore we can enter into freedom as believers because we have been released from the bondage of sin -which leads to death. If we believe that Christ came to remove all blemish and sin and seperation between God and us, then what do we have to fear? NOTHING!!

How much easier would it be if we could keep that as the divider between our actions, thoughts, words and the world? That since we have no need for fear, we have no need to sin. We dont have to sin! If only we could remind ourselves of that truth constantly. Thats TRUE freedom.


Questions to ask ourselves in practice:

Why did/do I do that?
What am I afraid of? Why?
Can God take care of that?
If I cant have it my way, will I be satisfied with God's way?
Can I handle it with love instead of fear next time?