The Weekly Word: The danger in freedom

By Robert Williams, Lead Pastor at The Bridge Church

There’s danger in freedom. Did you know that?

You’ve probably never thought of it. Most people don’t, especially in a nation that champions freedom.

Am I saying we shouldn’t have it? Absolutely not! But when we sing songs like “God Bless America,” it confuses me sometimes. Hasn’t He already blessed us?! I mean, how much more blessing do we need?

And do we really recognize the ridiculous blessing there is in our freedom, or do we just sing about it every year because it’s what we’ve always done?

There’s danger in freedom. This is why we worry about giving it to our children.

Handing the keys to the car over to them, letting them determine their own schedule, allowing them to go somewhere unsupervised; these are all things that scare us as parents because of what we know through life experience.

They could make poor decisions that have consequences they may not be prepared to bear the weight of. They could get hurt, pregnant, kidnapped, or worse. You name it, we as parents come up with it and fear it.

There are plenty of dangers in freedom. I don’t have enough time or space in this column to list them all, but I bet if you thought about it, you could realize a few pretty quickly.

And yet, God believed in freedom. At the very beginning of the Bible we see a story about the first two humans to ever walk the earth, Adam and Eve. God created them and then set them free.

They had the freedom to choose wrong and to choose right. They had the right to choose God’s way or their own. They could have chosen safety or danger.

They were given freedom. And just like many of us, they abused it. They took it for granted.

Two things to note:

1) True freedom doesn’t come from the stars and stripes. It comes through Jesus’ broken body and shed blood for our sins. We may be able to lose our freedom here on earth, but we will never lose freedom from Satan, sin, and death if we are willing to give our lives over to Jesus.

2) We must step into the freedom God gives us and use it rather than abuse it. Freedom may be dangerous, but it was and still is important to God.

The question is what you are using that freedom for? Are you using your freedom to bless others or live for yourself? Are you using your freedom to set captives free and be a part of the solution on this earth or part of the sinful, self-centered complaining crowd?

A man named Paul said it this way: “Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

It all comes down to this: What are you doing to utilize your freedom for the good of others?