The Warring Sides Of Freedom & The Self

            The human soul longs for freedom.  It is, however, the nature of those who long and the confusion of what freedom really is that keeps us from it.  Becoming a follower of Jesus is freedom in definition, unlocking the manacles of sin and releasing the binds of fear, anxiety, anger, bitterness, and all things broken.  It is this we often forget when our nature bid us return to a state of self-reliance and selfish pride, and we comply in attempting to reapply the broken shackles that once bound us.  This makes us miserable.  In our flawed thinking we make the realization difficult that an attempted hybrid of freedom and self cannot exist – they are warring sides.  One is eternally in place while the other is disintegrating vanity.  

            I will be the first to attest to eating from the table of disintegrating vanity while claiming the perpetually existent table of freedom for my own – actual dining calls for variety in tastes and choice, but attempting to mix and match from the aforementioned tables is a vain pursuit.  Like water and oil, my fear of rejection and failure cannot mix with freedom; no matter the time spent shaking a bottle containing them both, the two will separate upon my surrender.  As a follower of Jesus Christ, the times I have been most miserable were when I held, in my cold grip, a crutch of myself.  An effort impossible in nature, I have tried living in peace while refusing to let go of something that couldn’t possibly foster any step in Christ’s direction. 

He, who knows the way of man greater than ourselves, says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” – Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV).

Here Jesus teaches the precise means for relieving the soul of its longing – coming to Him.  It is as if we, His followers, forget that salvation is unconditional, and that we have some valid reason to hold on to burdens only birthed from the flesh-concerned self.  Christ has claimed our very souls, yet we attempt to keep from Him that which was once part of our slavery.  Think of a slave, once released from an oppressive, destructive master.  His broken chains serve him no purpose, continuing to drag them around only reminds him of the past and makes him forget where he is now.     

            Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7:22, "For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord.  Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ" (ESV).  It appears then - paradoxically - that even in freedom, man is serving.  Paul is right - we are always serving something, and it is what we are in service to that bears the difference between death and life.  In becoming a freed people, we leave the chains of human nature behind and sell ourselves in slavery to something else entirely – a Rescuer so glorious, teeming with grace and mercy, that eternal bondage to Him can only be the single and greatest meaning of what it is to be free.


Grace & Peace,


J. S. Wade