How to Live in True Freedom

I loved this topic from the Reframe series. True freedom is what I was seeking long ago as I worked for a graduate degree in Philosophy specializing in Ethics. I got the degree but knew I was not even close to learning how to live in true freedom! Back then I didn’t even believe in the God who is love and has revealed himself in scripture from Genesis to Revelation. As I look back even farther in the “rear view mirror,” I can remember seeing the movie The Ten Commandments and falling in love with Charlton Heston but he sure didn’t help me learn how to live in true freedom.

As I look back on that experience as an idealistic young adult just entering college I do think it may have been one of many events that stimulated me to try to figure out the best way, not only for living my own life, but for all mankind. I didn’t believe in God but was developing a keen interest in behavioral sciences such as psychology, which I believed would eventually figure out how to eliminate man’s inhumanity to man. I did not find what I was seeking in Psychology. That is why much later I switched to Philosophy. When I finally realized I had not found what I was looking for there either, I began to realize I would never know enough … not about myself and certainly not about the crazy mixed up world we live in … to make the best life choices even for myself, never mind the rest of mankind. I gave up my quest to become the savior of the world!

A few years after I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy, which I now call my “degree in atheism,” a godly pastor introduced me to Jesus Christ and I decided to believe in the God who created everything and knows everything, I even began to relish the idea that He knows me from the inside out and He is holy, I am not.  That thought would have crushed me if it weren’t for the fact that I also learned that He loves me and gave himself for me. He is a good good Father and has plans for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future. I chose to put my faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, repented of my atheism and received Christ into my heart. He is the Savior of the world I am not. I don’t have to figure out how to live in true freedom because the Holy Spirit, who is the “personalized expression of the love between God the Father and God the Son,” now lives in me. I thank our Pastor Mike Plunket for that wonderful description of the One who indwells every believer. We are sons and daughters, accepted in the eternal community of our triune God, we are loved with the same love that raised Jesus from the dead.

So what now? I think everything I have written so far is good Biblical theology. It tells about our status in God’s eternal kingdom, but does it answer the question I was asking in my doctoral dissertation about how to live in true freedom here in this crazy mixed up world? Yes it does, the Holy Spirit living in all believers is the key. My next essay will focus on Gal. 2:20.