Speaking of Life: Freedom

FREEDOM

Freedom is a deeply cherished commodity and well worthy of celebration.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, described as a “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and “that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The apostle Paul wrote of freedom centuries before the U.S. Founding Fathers. In declaring that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of freedom, Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Living in the grace of God is true freedom indeed. Yet, strangely, when such terms as freedom and forgiveness are used to explain God’s grace, certain misunderstandings often occur.

Some people mistake grace as being God’s permission to do anything we want, including unwholesome, destructive behavior towards self and others. They misunderstand grace to be permission to sin instead of forgiveness of sin.

God indeed forgives our every sin, but he doesn’t authorize us to sin. It’s important to understand that while God gives us eternal forgiveness, he does not often remove the natural, physical consequences of sin.

For example, God forgives the sin of adultery, but the adulterer will still suffer the painful social, emotional, and physical results that sin carries with it. Adulterers risk the potentially lethal fury of a jealous husband or wife, they risk any number of sexually transmitted diseases, and they will certainly experience the agonies of messed up relationships with their spouse, their children, and likely, in time, even with their adulterous partner.

God forgives sin, but sins still hurts, just as we can all forgive our own acts of stupidity, but a hot iron skillet will burn no less painfully if we take hold of it.

There is great freedom in knowing that God forgives all our sins completely and reconciles us to himself. It is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.

People who trust in God to forgive all their sins don’t live for sin. They want to live in the way God wants them to, the way of doing to others what they’d want others to do to them. Paul explained it this way: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

The Christian life is not a list of rules and regulations. Rather, it is a life in which we care as much about the well being and happiness of others as we do about ourselves. Love, Jesus called it, and there is nothing more freeing.

When we move into this life of freedom, we realize that grace in Christ really does mean that God forgives all our sins, past, present and future, and yet we also realize that we don’t want a life of sin. Even though we all do sin, our faith that God loves us anyway moves us to avoid sin, not to embrace it.

Americans treasure their hard won liberty and set aside July 4 to celebrate it every year.

Jesus died and was raised again to free all humans from the tyranny of sin. And that’s something that can be celebrated every day in every nation on Earth.

I’m Joseph Tkach, speaking of life.