What is freedom? And what is it worth to you? Countless men have given their lives for it. Many people have worked hard for it. Others have only dreamed of it because they value their personal comfort over the effort it may require to obtain it. Still others don’t believe they can ever experience it because they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
Whatever your definition of freedom is, one thing is for sure: God created you to be free. True freedom is not the ability to do what you want, it’s the ability to be who God intended you to be without bondage or limitation. Taking it a step further, freedom cannot be experienced outside of the truth. Jesus said that the truth that we know would make us free. This means that we are liberated to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives when we allow truth to penetrate our pre-existing beliefs and change our perspective and lifestyle. The more we welcome the presence of truth in our lives, the less dependent we will be upon false hopes, fantasies, and obsessions to make us feel good. When we truly embrace God’s truth, we relinquish control of our future into the hands of God. We also declare our independence from all deception, which affects not only our beliefs about God and the Bible, but our relationships and our own self-awareness.
It’s amazing to see just how dysfunctional relationships have become these days due to the power of deception, soul ties, ungodly control, and insecurities, all of which have their root in neglecting to deal with truth honestly. We have the tendency to reject the reality that is before us (if we don’t like it) and replace it with what we want to be true. We can easily convince ourselves that something is true when it isn’t, simply because it makes us feel better. If we don’t like our situation, we ignore it or replace it with something that is easier to deal with. This is the result of our society conditioning us to do whatever makes us happy, without regard to the fact that if we don’t deal with life head-on, it will come back to bite us. Ignoring our problems or medicating our problems away with drugs, alcohol, sexual fantasy, eating, or even shopping will not solve anything, it will make things worse.
As believers, we should live our lives to please our Lord. We should be committed to the truth that will liberate us to be who God created us to be. This is not always easy or comfortable, but it is liberating because we don’t have to be influenced by anything or anybody other than the person of Truth Himself: Jesus Christ. As we submit to His truth for our lives, we declare our independence from every other power that holds us in captivity. True freedom is experienced when we realize that we don’t have to sin, we are given the opportunity to serve God. We don’t have to pray, we have the liberty to communicate with our Father. We don’t have to go to church, we are free to be in relationship with the family of believers that God puts us into.
The founding fathers of our nation were committed to being free from the tyranny of British control and they fought for their freedom. They took the risk of moving out into the unknown because they were driven with the passion to fulfill their dreams. Many people lost their lives in pursuit of freedom while countless others in Great Britain remained in the jail cells of control and deception, wishing they had mustered up the courage to step out of their comfort zone. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather lose my life at least attempting to fulfill my dream than wondering what could have been as I rot in the decay of regret and misery.
Declare your independence from every ungodly power in your life that hinders the expression of what God has put inside of you. Declare your independence from every relationship that hinders your growth and development. Declare your independence from the temptation to create a false sense of reality when you don’t like the cards you are dealt at the table of life. Ask the Lord for His truth to be revealed to you so you can adjust your heart to be in line with His will. This will not only please the Lord, it will cause you to elevate above the deception that keeps you in bondage because you are convinced that you don’t have problems when you really do. Someone who denies that they have a problem will not seek help for it nor receive the help of others. Break the vicious cycle of deception in your life. Embrace God’s truth. Be free!
Declare your independence, not from the godly relationships that God ordains for you, but from everything else that takes the place of God in your life. Are you aware that you are the “temple of the Lord?” Your willingness to embrace truth will determine just how free He is in you to live through you. Don’t be God’s jail. Refuse to hinder His desire to minister to and through you. He surrendered His freedom on the cross so that you could live for Him, totally free! Declare your independence!