What Does It Mean to Be Free?

If you are in handcuffs and helpless, and someone offers you the key, would you take it?

The Law is like handcuffs that bind you to strict rules, Paul tells the Galatians. Grace is the key that sets you free.

The Law says, “No, thanks. I’d rather live in these handcuffs.”

You would never say this, nor would you ever choose this, but that’s what happens when you refuse the freedom God gives you in Christ.

When you live free in Christ, your primary purpose is to please Him because you love Him.

Too often, we think we need to get busy serving Christ, and He will perhaps love us more. But that’s the Law’s way of thinking. Be more concerned about your life before God and your witness to the world. Your neighbor and your coworker see you are as busy as a termite, but you don’t have a life of love and joy and depth to back up your testimony. If we focus on pleasing Jesus, you’ll do good, too.

How does God make a saved sinner good? He starts by giving us a new nature. This new nature wants to live differently—higher, deeper, better. But it can’t. It says, “I want to live like Jesus, but I always mess up. I’m so weary of trying and failing.” (See Romans 7.) Defeated and discouraged, we ask God, “What’s wrong with me? Will You help me?”

And the Lord says, “Of course; I thought you’d never ask.” God gives us a new principle called “the fruit of the Spirit.” This is the life He wants us to live—by faith. We are saved by grace; we are to live by grace. Of course, we will not reach perfection in this life, but we put all our hope in Jesus Christ and wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness we’ll have someday in heaven.

Nothing else works in the Christian life. We could keep up all religious pretense the best we can, but it doesn’t amount to anything. What matters is what is going on inside us. The way to live the Christian life is by faith expressed with love. And the love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

The Christian life offends us because it calls for unconditional surrender. Our pride gets hurt because it shows off our sinful hearts. Most people feel like they’re good enough as they are. The Cross is an insult to the proud heart.

What does the gospel of grace do for the believer? It frees us from doing wrong and allows us to do right. Grace doesn’t set us free to sin, but it sets us free from sin. We want to please God, not because we must please Him like a slave must please his master, but because we are His sons and daughters, and we want to please our Father. We want to follow God, not because we fear to do otherwise like an enemy, but because we want to.

We serve God because we love Him. Jesus said that if we love Him, we’ll obey Him (John 14:15). Love is the foundation for living right. The Law only produces a negative goodness, a legal goodness. You can say, “I don’t do this, and I don’t do that.” But what do you do? Do you do things to please God for the very love of pleasing Him? He wants us to live for Him that way. The Christian life is a beautiful love relationship—anything less puts you in handcuffs.

Next: The fruit of the Spirit.