LIBERTY
How important liberty is to us! We heralded “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as primary goals in the foundation of this country. We have spent countless lives trying to preserve the same for ourselves and for others. Lives that were well spent I might add. It was the reason for forming this nation “under God”. The much misquoted First Amendment of the US Constitution was drafted to insure that the liberty to pursue God would come without the involvement or interference of any political body.
When Jesus said, “I came to set the captives free”, and “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” His message embodied the need of every human to have liberty. It was championed by our Lord and Savior.
Liberty can be defined as having multiple choices. You can go left or right, north or south, be rich or poor, work hard or little, live carefully or carelessly. Liberty does NOT remove from us the result of those choices, however. If one chooses to be slothful, then the choice of how to spend one’s money is limited, since money becomes limited. If one chooses to be disrespectful to their bosses, the length of employment is hindered. If one chooses to be careless with themselves, that carelessness could cause someone to stumble. And so it goes.
Liberty is an interesting thing. It works both ways. You have the liberty to reap good from good seed and the liberty to reap bad from bad seed. Paul writes, “for me all things are lawful but not all things are beneficial”. Sometimes I have watched Christians enamored with their freedom, who spend that hard earned freedom carelessly. I say “hard earned” because it cost the life of our Lord and King and was purchased with nothing less than His blood. Liberty is always purchased and defended with blood. I say “carelessly” because they give no thought to what they are doing with their freedom and they are willing to use it as an occasion to the flesh and not what it was purchased for.
We have liberty to matter and liberty to not matter. It seems a shame, but that is the nature of liberty. It does not limit your choices. Unfortunately that means some will use their liberty to not matter. It is my urgent and sincere desire that Christians everywhere would change the face of the earth with their liberty and not spend it on the frivolous indulgences that they revel in. I am not so naive, however as to think that will come to pass. Our enemy is too good with words and lies and his temptations are too hard to resist for the undisciplined. But I pray that those who have been deceived in the very liberty that was purchased for them, would awaken to the nature of it, and turn around, using it for profitable and not unprofitable pursuits.
The bible does not define all those things that it considers frivolous, but it does give guidelines as to how to determine what is profitable and what is not. I will not bore the reader with all of those here, but you should do a word study on “profitable” some time. The results are quite revealing. What is of the flesh is fleshly and what is of the Spirit is spiritual. Those things that are of the flesh are generally referred to as “unprofitable.”
In conclusion, let this article serve as an alert. A warning if you will. Take care of what you have been given. Measure your walk next to that of our Lord and do NOT excuse “carnal” as some sort of fulfillment of your liberty. You have the liberty to serve God the same as you have the liberty to serve yourself. Serve God! Walk according to the manner you have been shown and let your liberty purchase for you a greater eternity. Let it become a catalyst to the advance of the Kingdom! Let it cause you to matter – to make a difference!