When you have freedom, you also need responsibility to act on it. These are the flip sides of a coin; you can’t have the one without the other. If you win the lotto, you need to strategise how you are going to use that money. If you don’t, it will slip away like sea sand through your hands. With freedom comes power. When a person is free, he has the power and the authority to choose for himself. He is no longer controlled by someone or something.
How many people can honestly say they are free? Free from ‘what’? Freedom itself exercises constraints on our behaviour. As social beings, our freedom is influenced by socially acceptable standards of conduct. A student cannot play all year through and expect to get an education at the same time. There is a cost involved. We may be free to choose a career path for ourselves but we have to carve it out through responsible means. A university education costs you a lot. It cost you a lot of effort and sacrifice to achieve your goals.
What about our destiny? Why do people shove that question in the back burner? If you knew you were only given 25 years to live your entire life, would you live it any differently? While no man knows when his appointed hour will come, many people go about life as though they will live forever. They work so hard to ‘build’ a life that they fail to ‘live’ a life. Ecclesiastes 9:12 reminds us that just like fish caught in a net and a bird caught in a trap, man’s life is suddenly taken away from him. Death is inevitable to all. So what do we do?
I observed a very talented man get stuck on a petty disagreement which spiraled into a catastrophe. It cost him his job, his marriage, his friends and eventually his sanity. So hard bent was he on proving his point that he failed to see the error of his ways. He was at the height of his career but doggedly chose to exercise his right to freedom of speech. He wasted all the effort put into his studies, his time, his resources and lost everything, including his dignity. He now walks for miles to queue at the soup kitchen. What a shame! What a waste!
The rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-30 was no better. He took the time to travel to meet Jesus to get an answer that obviously troubled him. He had everything materially but lacked the most important thing in life. When he was given the answer he refused it. He had the freedom to liberate his soul yet he chose otherwise. How sad, the poor little rich guy!
Freedom is not free. It cost you! It cost Jesus Christ his life on earth to get freedom for mankind. He paid the ultimate price. We are offered eternal life through Jesus Christ. We have the freedom to choose. John 14:6 says that there is no other way to God the Father except through the Son. We have to be responsible enough to choose wisely. Our entire life depends on it. The assurance we have that we are truly free is found in John 8:32 that ‘whom the Son sets free is free indeed’. In John 1:14 we see that ‘The Word (Jesus) became flesh and made His dwelling among us.’ John adds, ‘We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ For the love of God, please choose wisely! □
Linda Pearl
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