Freedom

Everyone wants to be free

 

If freedom is committing one’s self to some other thing

 

Then every person on the face of the globe is in slavery

 

Some to politics, some to religion

 

Some to science and others to reason

 

We bind ourselves in relationships and in worldviews

 

Making enemies and friends and our love reaches few

 

Allow me to be so bold as to ask, just what exactly are you a slave to?

 

Examples

Christian

The Christian claims to be the harborer of truth, yet his own claim to truth keeps him from having an open mind toward what his could actually be wrong about. Do we not realize that in order to become a Christian, we must have admitted wrong in the first place? If we can be wrong once, it then follows that we can be wrong again.

Atheist

The Atheist claims to have followed the natural evidence to a place of undeniable denial of any whatsoever deity. When natural evidence is in fact incapable of either proving or disproving such a deity. He realizes not that if natural evidence is used to prove natural things, it follows naturally that supernatural evidence should be used to prove supernatural things.

Agnostic

The Agnostic claims that he neither believes nor disbelieves in a God. Let me ask him. If God does so exist and His existence would mean that this person’s life was indeed created with a purpose, would it not be in his best interest to discover whether or not a God actually does exist? The consequences are too high if the claim is true for any individual not to make such an endeavor. The pursuit could really mean life or death.

 

Testimony

As for me, allow me to tell you about my slavery and why I have chosen it as opposed to others. I have heard it said both ways: that Christianity is the greatest hindrance to freedom, and that it is only in Christ that any one person can find freedom. In my life this far, I have explored the writings of the Christian faith found in the Holy Bible. I have read the Koran. I have explored empiricism and naturalism. I have watched people try and communicate with the dead and try to predict the future. I have experienced both credulity and skepticism noticing with each new encounter that any worldview will ask us to commit to a certain number of beliefs and hold to a certain pattern of action. Even Nihilism requires that a person believe that no belief is worth holding. The only answer I found, as to why people commit themselves into such a slavery as worldview, and brings those answers to fruition founds itself within the Christian’s Holy Bible. I hope that you will allow me to reason with you on this subject.

 

“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, ‘You cant eat from any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, [You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.]’ ‘No! You will not die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” – Genesis 3:1-7 HCSB

 

According to Judeo-Christian Scripture, life before the fall consisted of man living with and serving God. There was only one command essentially to which men had to adhere. Man only had one rule to follow scripturally. There was one tree in the Garden that was restricted for man’s consumption. According to scripture, God gave mankind a choice by giving one rule. In this law, freedom was found: the freedom to either live in relationship with God or to deny God. Man chose to deny God. He chose to rely on himself.

 

Because it is still within mankind to rely on himself, he has become a slave to himself and thus a slave to whatever worldview he chooses to hold. This includes the Christian worldview. We must choose slavery to something because mankind initially chose slavery over the freedom that he had. Why, then, does it make sense, and why have I chosen slavery to the Christian God and to a Biblical worldview as opposed to all other worldviews available?

 

It is the Biblical worldview alone that describes a God who created us for freedom and lays out a plan that this God is following in order that His people will be restored to freedom (an even greater freedom than he had in the beginning). It fulfills historical Hebraic prophecies and reasons as to the way that God acts within this world. Here’s the story in a nutshell.

 

Scripture tells us of a God who created humanity in His image and gave mankind one command: to stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Mankind, naturally wanting to be like the God he was created to resemble, decided to consume the fruit from the tree and thus rebel against God. It only makes since that if man is to be returned to his rightful place with God, that God would have to be the one to return him. God loved humanity so much that He gave His only begotten son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16), as a substitute for the punishment that we deserve. By the way, If Jesus was God’s only begotten son, He must also be God. With no substitute, we cannot be righteous because God is just. Now, because of that sacrifice, we can be returned to God no matter how horrible we think we are: because God is love. On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead in order that people might know that He really did have the authority that He claimed. Now, God is working to restore creation to its original perfection. He allowed it this way because this is the only way that men receive the freedom to choose. He tarries only to give people more time to become members of His forever kingdom.

 

See, these scriptures are the only scriptures that describe a world that began free, and will be returned to freedom. On this earth, so long as human beings seek to satisfy their own pleasure instead of living in relationship with God, we must deny ourselves in order to follow Christ. What does it take to be a child of the one true living God? We do not pledge ourselves to a human being as do members of other ‘religions’. We pledge ourselves only to the God of everything, for He is the only one with the right to rule over people. Romans 10:9 tells us that if we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and declare Jesus the Lord of our lives we will be saved: saved from the slavery that all men are subjected to.

 

So, allow me to ask you. Are you imperfect? That imperfection is a result of the horrible fall that we read of earlier. You can be returned to perfection; returned to a right relationship with God. Do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Have you declared Jesus the Lord of your life?