“Live Like A Free Man!”
These are words echoing around my mind at the moment – “Live like a free man”.
I can’t help but think about the movie Braveheart where Mel Gibson/William Wallace cries “Freedom!” and he tells his troops “free men you are” is his Scottish accent.
The American Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness.”
But what is freedom, and what does it mean to live like a free man?
Like the Declaration of Independence, and many in the West – I believe that people should have freedom as one of their fundamental rights.
Indeed, Christ came to “proclaim freedom to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Christ didn’t come to just talk about freedom – but to proclaim it, to shout about it and to demonstrate it. Many alter calls are based on the message of Freedom – come to Christ and he can set you free, free from the sin and the shame of life.
Paul talks about our glorious freedom – “…creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom 8:21). The language is “liberation” and “glorious freedom”.
Freedom is part of the very nature of God. We know that Christ proclaimed it to the captives and we also know that the Holy Spirit brings freedom: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17). So when the Word is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit confirms the Word by showing up – and when He does that – freedom comes.
But what is freedom? We all have ideas about it. I think most people think that it is the right to do whatever you want, whenever you want.
The more I think about it – the more that I think freedom is choice, and more specifically – your ability to choose what binds you.