If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. . . 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:31-32, 36)
There has always been a deep urge in me to bolt. It is a top fear of mine to be stuck in one place too long. Perhaps I fear overstaying my welcome, to be seen as idle, or its a generic fear of commitment. It’s a strongly held belief of mine that hell is paved with glacial moving traffic and purgatory style Wal-Mart checkout lines. And it is not like I necessarily have something better to do, I only hate to be stagnant. I need to be free.
As we age, we realize the limits to freedom. When we are young, freedom means licenses and new apartments. We who are on the other side of those events know they do not grant freedom but only more struggle. To some extent, no matter our resources or paycheck within this world, we will never be free.
So Jesus comes. Piercing through our need for space and our desire to run, He grants a kinetic freedom that the world can never deliver. For a soul to be free, it requires only grace. This is the freedom we are given; to blaze our own path of redemption unto our desired end. But even if our end is undesirable, like an eternal red light, we are given the option to live on a higher plane. To live with true freedom, the freedom of Christ, is to live free regardless of circumstance and opportunity. True freedom then is not simply the ability to choose what we wish. This is too small a scope. No, true freedom is the ability to live unshaken through those decisions made out of our control. So that the power of the world lays unmatched to the power granted to us from a broken savior who though free, made himself a slave in order to show a transcending freedom. Sometimes freedom looks like a criminal’s death.
Matt simon blog 