What Is Free Anyway?

The Book of Exodus begins with Israel, God's people enslaved in Egypt. Their numbers had grown and the king of Egypt feared there could be an uprising; his plan was to reduce them to a more "manageable" sum. He issued an order for Israelite sons to be killed at birth; but God desired not only for His people to continue to grow, but to grow as His free people. So many had been born into slavery, though. How, exactly, does one who has never known freedom now live? To many, freedom could have been a scary proposition. What do we do next? Where do we go? Will everyone honor our freedom? They owned nothing, they had been separated from their homeland (a homeland they never really knew); some had been separated from their families. They would be called "free," but free to do what? What is "free" anyway?

God would not abandon them. He chose a leader, He gave them provisions for their journey, He declared the direction in which they were to move, and He told them exactly what they were free to do and how they were to live. He answered those questions for His people, Israel, and He answers those questions for those He frees today. 

When I was growing up in a religious home, attending church and a Christian school, I was hearing the gospel on the regular. I was answering altar calls on the regular as well. If anyone here wants to know Jesus as their Savior today... And so it would go, and I would raise my hand, walk forward, do whatever it took to "receive Jesus." He never came. Or so I thought. The truth is, He showed up every time; but I'd open my hands eager to receive the magic, the feeling, the washing of the Spirit, the breath of God, and when I looked down at my empty hands and stepped into the same old dirty, condemned world in which I resided, I figured He was a no-show. It was like the people of Israel, murmuring in the desert: their freedom did not look like anything they would have imagined.

God has not abandoned us any more than He abandoned Israel. He gave us freedom perfectly and answers all our questions as to how to walk in it. He gave us a Leader, a Teacher, Jesus, His Word in the flesh. He has also given us His Holy Spirit to dwell in us, change us, and help us obey. God has given us all we need to live life in the imitation of Christ. He has pointed us in the direction we are to walk. And He has, in Scripture, spelled out for us the things from which He has freed us and the things which we are free to now do: freedom from sin and its penalty, freedom to be holy as we follow the example of Christ and allow His Holy Spirit to change us, freedom to humbly serve others, freedom to receive God's grace and enter His presence as His righteous children, freedom to know His perfect will and receive the inheritance He has promised-- just to name a few. He has provided all we need to get the most out of the freedom He has given. He has carved this path on which we are to walk if we are to be truly free. It's a path that many times doesn't feel like we think it should; it doesn't always manifest itself the way we in Western culture have come to understand freedom. But it is freedom in the truest sense of the word-- purchased, given, expounded, and preserved by a God who answers the question, What is free anyway?

(Photo courtesy LuAnn Martin)