I’ve been thinking this week about how obeying God is connected to freedom. At first, this might not sound right. Often, we think that obedience is about losing our freedom! But true freedom isn’t getting to do anything we want, instead, freedom in Christ looks like:

• Freedom from sin. We are no longer slaves to sin and under it’s power (Romans 6). We’ve been set free and made new!
• Freedom to know God. Now that we’ve been forgiven and cleansed through Jesus, we can come confidently to God (Hebrews 4:16). We get to learn his ways and how much he loves us.
• Freedom to know ourselves. As we get to know God, we also get to know ourselves. Jesus said that apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:5). Because we are in Jesus we also discover our true selves, our design, and our purpose.
• Freedom to explore. As we come to God, entirely new horizons open to us that we had never considered before. God invites us to learn and grow. It’s like we just discovered that we have wings and there’s a whole new dimension to life. We were meant to fly!

As we give ourselves in obedience to God, it’s not a loss of our freedom. Instead, it’s the doorway to more freedom than we have ever known!