Are you free?
I want you to take that question to heart. In complete honesty with yourself and God, can you say that you are entirely free in your soul? Jesus says in John 8:34, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” According to this standard, would Jesus consider you a slave, or would he call you free? Sin is so sinister, sin is so deceptive, and the human heart is truly so deceitful. Your lying heart can tell you that you’re free when your inability to break free from sin says otherwise.
Friend, you may have no addiction to alcohol, and no addiction to gambling, no addiction to scratch offs, and no addiction to drugs, but sin goes so much deeper than the obvious outward sins. A sober, drug-free person may be addicted to the approval of man. He may be a people-pleaser, seeking honor from others, overly concerned with people’s opinion of him, with an obsession with looking good, an obsession with building an outstanding reputation, his motives polluted by a desire for praise and glory. That man is not free. His core desire is not to live for the glory of God. He loves the praise of man more than the praise of God (John 12:43). He is controlled by impure desires and he is not free. He is a slave of sin.
Friends, I have good news! There is an answer to your dilemma! There is a Liberator! There is an Emancipator! His name is Jesus Christ – Where His Spirit is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17); when His word is known and put into practice, a victim of sin and a perpetrator of sin will be set free!
Jesus says in John 8:31, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Friend, truth sets people free, if they respond accordingly. The truth of God’s word gives you the keys to unlock the shackles, but you have to take that key and insert it into the keyhole, you have to receive God’s word by faith into your heart, and you have to let it change you, give you a new perspective, and act upon that. Know that in all reality, when you see the light of day shine through a crack in the coalmine wall where the rocks have caved in and you’ve been trapped in darkness, you are willingly and intentionally remaining trapped when you choose not to begin digging where the crack is. Some people who’ve been trapped in a spiritual coalmine for years see the sunshine breaking through a crack in the rubble, but they just cover up that crack with more rubble and remain in darkness.
Before I became a Christian, I was out in Wisconsin which we called “Risk-consin” with a band I was in as we were travelling the country playing music. One crazy night my good friend and I created boxing gloves out of aluminum foil, guzzled our beer, and we beat the daylights out of each other in our motel room. I still have chipped teeth from that night to this day. Before our boxing match I found a Bible in an end table drawer and I immediately needed to remove this to try and get it further away from my conscience, so I put it in the bottom drawer of the dresser.
Friends, are you doing the same thing? Has God brought His truth into your life, but you’ve made efforts to dispose of it, efforts to hide it? Jesus wants you to be set free. Won’t you let Him do that for you? In John 8:36 Jesus says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”