There are two definitions of the word FREE, one means having no price and the other one means freedom. So if we think about it, what does being free really mean? What does true freedom really mean? There are times when some of us feels like we are not truly free, like we are still forbidden to do things we want and some of us feels like we are slaves to our sins. So in book of John 8:31-38, we will learn what is the meaning of true freedom that most of us crave the most.
How can someone be truly free? If we really want a true freedom, we should first want to be God’s disciples and we should continuously practice the Lord’s teaching where we can find the truth, then only from there we will be truly free.
In John 8:31-32, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Here it says “hold” which means, continue practicing Jesus’ teachings because you can’t follow one time and be a disciple because the moment you stop holding on to God’s teaching you’re not really a disciple.
But there are some people that doesn't want to know the truth. For example, someone told you that your husband has a mistress but you cannot bear to know the truth so you settle with living with a lie. The truth is, some people chose to be comforted with lies than to be hurt with the honest truth. These kind of people doesn't know that the truth, no matter how painful it is, will always set them free.
While in John 8:33-35, “They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.”
A lot of people hold on to the wrong things as their source of security… in this case, the Jews relied on to their lineage. But Jesus pointed out that while they might be physically free, they are slaves of sin. Even to our bad habit, if we feel like we cannot remove it from us then we begin to become slaves to that sin. If we surrender these bad habits and wrong doings to Jesus, we are putting the Lord in the center of us and removing the things that are avoiding us to achieve true freedom.
In John 8:36-38, “O if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
True freedom can only be obtained through Jesus. We all know that some people uses anything just to feel like they are free. Some uses financial freedom, some uses their success to show other people that they are now free to do whatever they want. What they don’t know is that we can only achieve true freedom through continuously holding on to the teachings of Jesus.
Freedom is a state of mind but it is also a reality. A lot of people are just making up scenarios to make them feel free. There are people that are in jail but they think that they are not, and there are people who are free but they feel like they are really not. In some cases we tend to use other things to make us feel like we have freedom, we tend to change our state of mind and fill it with the freedom that we lack to forget the reality that we are slaves to sins. The fact is, freedom must not be only present in our minds but also in our reality to obtain true freedom.
Here’s our today’s truth based in 1 Corinthian 7:32, “For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.”
So what does this mean? If before we are slaves to our sins, we are freed by Jesus the moment He took all our sins with him and offered to give His life. You are free so live freely. So, whenever you feel like you will commit a sin, you can always say no because you are no longer a slave to sins because you have been freed by the Lord.
We can also say that some of us have already received freedom and still doesn't want to live freely. Like in the story of The Ogre that Never Dies, all of the people in the community tried to kill the ogre but no one succeeded until one boy we strive hard not to be like someone we hate but we don’t recognize that little by little we become more like them. So what we can do about this?
Here are two steps that can help us obtain freedom through Jesus:
Assess yourself- Have you fully accept Jesus Christ being your Lord and Savior?
Free yourself from:
Over performing- it is okay to stop for a while and rest to let God take over.
Opinion of Others- it is okay to ask for suggestions but you must decide for yourself.
Insecurity and Lack of Confidence- stop thinking you are not worthy or not enough.
Slavery of Sin- start removing the sins you think you cannot remove.
In conclusion, true freedom is having no sins that holds us back, no insecurities, no pretensions and no limits of praising Jesus. True freedom is us being strong to avoid sins and not to be slaves again by it. Lastly, true freedom is when we realize that we are free because we are freed by the Lord.
Galatians 5:1, “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.”
