Freed to Belong

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. — Romans 2:6-8, ESV

Who is your master? What are you mastered by? We can become very arrogant at times and claim freedom while in reality freedom is defined differently by Jesus than we are used to. Freedom to us, and I'm speaking as an American, usually means that we are not bound by anyone or anything, able to do anything and everything that we want to. The dictionary even defines it this way: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

The reality of freedom is this: I am free to obey Jesus so that I am not bound to sin. I have been freed so that I might belong. I am never free to do as I please, for the things that I truly long for is sin — to fulfill every wish and desire that my appetite to sin has.

Those who do not know or love Jesus are not the enemy (and if you're not a Christian and you're reading this, I'm so sorry if you have experienced otherwise from those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus). Rather, they are those that we are being sent out by Jesus to go after. We are on a rescue mission to free those who obey unrighteousness. You see, those who do not know Christ are not as free as they believe. They, too, are in obedience to something, just as we were before we met Jesus, but this something that they are in obedience to has a desire to hurt and destroy them. They are obeying unrighteousness without even it because it has clothed itself in "freedom."

Christians: we are free to obey. We are free to not sin. We are free to run after those who have not yet experienced true freedom. I AM FREE!!! The battle is real, still, but I am free, because I have been freed by Jesus to belong to Jesus.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.