What does it mean to be free?
This is not a question that yields an easy answer. I started thinking about my life and wondering if I am truly free. I know that I don’t always feel like I am free. But these days, I am trying not to live by my feelings. I know that I don’t always live like I am free either. As I mature in my faith, I desire to learn to live by what I know God’s word says to be true and not by past actions.
So, I laid my feelings aside and He reminded me of a few verses that shout of His freedom!
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36
The richness of these verses is overwhelming! They are God’s guarantees toward us. Where His Spirit is, there is freedom. His Spirit lives within us. That means that His freedom lives within us.
When Christ does something, it sticks. When He makes a promise, He keeps it. That is exactly what the verse in John is. It is a promise of Christ’s freedom that comes from salvation. What a glorious promise!
“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
Before Christ, we were slaves…slaves to sin, slaves to shame, slaves to guilt. But when He set us free, He covered us with His love, His grace and His salvation. We are no longer held captive by our sin, we are held captive by His righteousness. That leads us to live free.
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” Romans 6: 22
We have been saved from a life of self-condemnation, hopelessness and death. But, it didn’t just stop there. Christ saved us from those things but He also saved us for certain things. He saved us for a life of abundance, hope and freedom.
Let’s return to my original question. What does it mean to be free?
Freedom is Christ.
Freedom is His Spirit living within us.
Freedom comes from His salvation.
Freedom is ours.
The freedom that God gives is absolute. It’s absolute because He said so. His word does not return void. Neither does it change. His word is not based on feelings. It is based on who He is.
Do I feel free all the time? No.
Do I always live like I am free? No.
But, am I free? Yes.
Yes, I am free! Truly free! Free Indeed!
And you are free too! You are not free because of your own effort or striving. You are free because Christ made it so.
Have you embraced the truth that Christ has made you free? Why or why not?
Bev Duncan @ Walking Well With God says
Karina,
I love how you point out that Christ not only saves us “from” things, He also saves us “for” certain things. It reminds me that our Lord is very intentional and has a purpose for us in our freedom. I believe we will never fully grasp our true sense of freedom this side of Heaven. God is always perfecting us in our faith, but we can certainly grow in truth. The more years that pass and the more trials and experiences that the God leads me through, the more I have realized my freedom, especially absolute freedom from condemnation. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) I am still learning to live more by fact than by my feelings…still a work in progress. Thanks for a great post on a hard question (loved your scripture infusion).
Blessings,
Bev
karina allen says
Bev! Thank you so much for sharing!!!
I love that verse in Romans. It is etched in my core. I thank God that He is so intentional in our lives, in every detail. His freedom is ours. We just need to grasp it as best as we can on earth and live like it. that will surely encourage others and open the door for them to find their freedom.
Have an amazing Tuesday!
Renee says
Gal. 5:1 is one of my favorite verses and I often quote it making it personal and specific. Such as, “it is for freedom that Christ set us (me) free, so (I will) stand firm then never again to be burdened by a yoke of slavery to ……sickness….to fear…..to the enemy. Being free means trusting God knowing we have the victory even over death! Wonderful post! Thank you for building up my day. God bless…
karina allen says
Renee,
Thank you for sharing! I love making Scripture personal. It changes my perspective in so many ways. Everyday, I pray that my trust in God grows and that I recognize the freedom that Christ has given me.
I pray that you have a blessed day!
Ruthie Lewis says
Love this! Love to write about freedom! For me, freedom is giving ourselves permission to live life in all the fullness and abundance God intends for us. But it is our choice to believe it is for ME, and to live it only by loosing every unique passion and gift that make up who I am.
karina allen says
Amen and Amen Ruthie! That is so good! Thank you for sharing!
I hope you have a great day!
Ali says
Galatians 5:1 is my favorite bible verse. Love spending time thinking about what it means to live FREE in Christ.
karina allen says
Hey Ali! Thank you for stopping by!
I pray that this week as you reflect on the freedom that Christ has given to you, may you really begin to walk out that freedom and lead the way to set others free!
Have a blessed week!
Meredith Bernard says
I so appreciate your words today, Karina. I have considered this many times, and still fail to live in the freedom that I possess. I tend to forget that my sins are forgiven, my past is forgotten and my future is secure. Thank you for the reminder that in Christ there is true freedom…from ourselves. xoxo, Meredith
karina allen says
That is so good Meredith! I fail more times than I care to remember. I am so grateful that He saves us from ourselves. We can be our own worst enemy.
Thank you for sharing! Blessings to you!
Joy says
I love that in the Old Testament, God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh the same thing. The shadow of things to come in Christ was seen in Moses, as the deliverer of God’s people, leading them out of Egypt into freedom to serve God. Ex.7:16, Ex. 5:. Awesome stuff
karina allen says
Joy, that is a good verse! That will preach! Thank you for sharing. Have a blessed day!
Ro elliott says
This has been a long journey for me…but in my 50’s I am living freer than I could imagine …and freedom is not arriving to a certain place…but being free from thinking we have arrived… And this journey of freedom will continue until that day!!
karina allen says
Amen to that Ro! May we never think that we have arrived! May we always have a teachable spirit! Have a blessed week!!!
Beth WIlliams says
Karina,
What does it mean to be free? Freedom means the ability to do and say anything about anyone. No censorship.
But it also means I am free from Satan’s hold over me. Christ has set me free
free to worship Him and work for Him!! He also saved me for a work that He has planned for me!! 🙂 🙂
Blessings
karina allen says
Beth, thank you for sharing! I love those things that God has saved us for!
Steve Hall says
Karina,
Thanks for the words of encouragement. If I may, I have a question for you …. but first some background context for the question.
I think I appreciate why you talk about living by faith as opposed to feelings. This is something that I have often heard preached and certainly tried to practice; unfortunately often with a fair amount of frustration. While pondering this, one day the question popped into my mind “Who gave you feelings in the first place?” Answering that question is proving to be an ongoing challenge!
I think part of the answer lies in Romans 12 v 1-2 in that once we have presented ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, so he can renew our minds. I am coming to the conclusion that a lot of my struggle in the past has been the fear of my feelings getting out of control and running amok, which has happened. My way of coping with this has been to surpress my feelings through rationality and assuming that if I base everything on rationality my feelings will somehow fall into line. But as you point out in your article and as noted in 1 John 4 v 16 once we are fearful we are moving in the opposite direction to faith and moving from freedom to bondage.
Therefore my question is do you consider faith and feelings to be mutually exclusive (i.e.: It’s one or the other) or do you think that through the freedom that Christ has one for us they can become complementary ? If the latter, I would be interested to hear how you think this may come about.
Regards,
Steve
karina allen says
Hey Steve! Thank you for sharing! Those are great thoughts!
It is by no means an easy thing to live by faith and not by emotions. I believe that the Lord gave us emotions. They are real and they have value. They connect us with this life and they help connect us to others…to share in their joys and sufferings.
Those emotions, as real as they are, are not to control us or dictate our thoughts and/or actions. I have gone through many hard seasons but as I mature in Christ I have learned to lean into what I know to be true, God’s word. The Bible says that my heart is deceptive. Emotions come and go like the wind. His word is constant and unchanging. I am getting better at making decisions based on what His word says and not how I am feeling at any given moment.
I don’t pretend to not feel things that I do feel or vice versa. I just bring it all to God. He is so huge! He can handle ANY emotion that I throw at Him. As my heavenly Father, He wants me to bring those emotions to Him. Faith and feelings are complementary in the sense that when we repeatedly respond in faith, our emotions do eventually fall in line with our belief in the truth and actions.
I find freedom in being able to go to God with all of my junk and issues. He welcomes them and then He molds me to look more like Jesus.
I hope this helps. Let me now if you have any other questions. 🙂
Blessings to you!!!
David says
Thanks Ms. Allen 4 the kind words and encouragement you have written