So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. John 8:36, CSB

As an American, I hear the word free a lot during the first week of July. Especially this year as the United States completes it’s 250th year as the self-proclaimed “land of the free”. 

But what does that even mean? Because I have to admit, I’ve felt decidedly bound over the years. Bound by my health and mental capabilities, bound by my finances and resources, and, perhaps most crucially, bound my the opinions and expectations of others around me. Sermon after sermon, study after study, all told me to claim the fact that Jesus sets me free, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized I was looking for him to release the wrong chains. 

God doesn’t see things the way we do. As a being that knows all, sees all, and can do all, he has the ability to choose solutions that will actually solve the problem. Whereas our limited human minds often create new issues with our attempts to fix things, assuming we can see the problem for what it truly is in the first place. 

When we think of being set free, we picture it as being able to do whatever we want to do. Even those that prescribe to the idea that following Jesus will align our will to his, so then what we want to do will be what he wants us to do, fall into the trap of thinking being free means acting without restriction. 

I’ve recently learned otherwise. 

I do a lot of volunteering—serving if you want the Bible school terminology. Sometimes God asks me to serve people that don’t seem to like me very much. That isn’t fun, but I continue to do it because I learned a long time ago that the misery of human fallibility is way better than the misery of trying to tell God “no”.

Recently, I had a moment that in the past would have been a big struggle for me. I would have had a lot of worldly thoughts to pray over, a lot of feelings to work through. But this time, there was none of that. Just praise for Jesus and a desire to gain more opportunities to serve him better. 

I was free. 

Not because I could do anything I wanted. Not because my will was more aligned with His. I was doing something I’d been doing for years because God called me to it and because I wanted to follow that calling. 

This time, though, I was doing it without falling into the sin of jealousy or self-pity or anger. In verse 34 Jesus declares that “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin”. Those thoughts still came, those feelings still rose, but they passed on by like a ship in the night. 

THIS is what Jesus can set us free from. We can be free from falling into certain sins in the first place. It takes time. It takes a lot of prayer and sacrifice of self. But perhaps, if we adjust our expectation of what it means to be set free, we’ll find it easier for Jesus to accomplish.