Are You Free?

“You, my brothers and sisters, we’re called to be free.” Galatians 5:13a NIV

Who wants to talk about finding freedom? Ooh me, ooh me, I do! Now, who wants to talk about being uncomfortable? Uhh, NO ONE! Ever!

I’m with you! But, guess what I’ve learned? Freedom isn’t often found in the comfortable. It’s found in the uncomfortable. It’s in trusting God...wholeheartedly. It’s in uncovering and reclaiming our identity. It’s in finding and demolishing our idols (aka, the things we put before God). And let’s be honest, NONE of that is easy.

But, did you catch the good news? We, as followers of Christ, are CALLED to freedom. Paul tells us so in the book of Galatians. It is ours. It belongs to us. But, we’ve got some uncomfortable work to do to claim it freely.

Paul was primarily talking to believers who had “fallen away from grace” (vs 4) because they had stopped listening to the Spirit. But also because they had started listening to their own fleshly desires, or to others who had them believing their acts were more important than their faith. Hey, I get it! That was me for years! Decades even. “If I read my Bible, go to church and promise to never do that thing again, the good will outweigh my bad.” Right?

Growing up, the message coming out of our local churches wasn’t always consistent with the Word of God, and the divide between the churches made it even more confusing. Unfortunately in a lot of areas, it’s still like that today. Because of this, there are so many Christians across the globe who believe they can please God or at least ward off His wrath, by being good or doing good deeds. And since freedom to choose comes with consequences, true freedom isn’t really available anyway, right?

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, God cares WAY more about the condition of our heart than He does the actions we try to appease Him with. Or even the actions we think we chased Him away with. Freedom is not “living our best life” with no regard to the outcome, but it’s also not living a life of good deeds just to earn good standing with God. True freedom is finally believing God has a plan and a purpose for our life, and walking toward it instead of being fearful of it. True freedom is knowing God loves us and there’s not a thing we have to do to earn it. True freedom is trusting that we can let go, because our Heavenly Father will never let us go. Once we know that, once we really know it, there’s no un-knowing it. It changes you. It changes everything. In fact…. it sets you free.