How to be completely free
Take a next step
Interested in joining, leading, or learning more about a discipleship group? Tell us a little about yourself and a leader will follow up.
Join a Discipleship GroupJohn 8:31,32
"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
In our country, we celebrate the signing of "The Declaration of Independence" which began the process of winning freedom from the political rule of England and establishing our nation. Many countries celebrate such a day when they won their independence from a foreign power. Freedom is a word which often is applied to a state of being where you have no external authority exercising control over you.
Does it mean you are "free" to do whatever you want? No, even our laws constrain us to do what is right. Can a Christian living in a country where the government forces them to worship in secret experience the freedom that Jesus described? I enjoy hearing the personal testimony of those who experienced freedom even while incarcerated serving out their sentence within prison walls. That is real freedom.
Jesus explained that we are slaves to sin, in bondage to do the very thing that we know is wrong and that we often do not want to do. But our holy and righteous God gets angry over the devastating impact of sin in our lives and families. The world does not acknowledge this kind of slavery, but as followers of Jesus, we have decided we must acknowledge the truth about how we fall short of what God requires. We know that we cannot meet His standards of goodness because sin is something that is borne from our own selfish desires.
We know we need a Savior to give us freedom from our own selves and the sin that is crouching outside the door. True freedom is not doing whatever you want, but it is experiencing God's Spirit inside you giving you the strength to say no to sin and yes to what He desires. Freedom is being able to follow our wants because they have been shaped by God to reflect the way He has made us.
Freedom is also having a choice and the ability to exercise that choice even when you thought you would never break free of those habits of sin. Your outside circumstances may impose physical constraints on you, but the inward freedom you can have will truly set you free. Today you can commit yourself afresh to letting Jesus be the Lord of your life and your choices. You can live in that freedom and experience all that He has made you for.