Based on your observation of our current culture, which value would you say takes priority – freedom or truth? I’m leaning toward freedom. I hear more stories of people who tinker with the truth to obtain or maintain a freedom, than I hear of people giving up a freedom to stand for the truth. When people want something, they want to be free to get it. They will do what it takes to remove the obstacles in the way of their desires. This often results in lies, deception, or manipulation. The fake IDs, the padded resumes, the overstated product performance claims, the understated income on form 1040; they compromise the truth to gain freedom – freedom to drink alcohol, to get a certain job, to earn higher profits, to pay less taxes. Why do we hear, “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission?” Because people just don’t want anyone shutting down their freedom.
Freedom is an important value. I am deeply grateful for the Bill of Rights, and the freedoms it protects. Under a different government, I would not be free to write this blog. We SHOULD have the right to liberty. But it’s also important to remember that we are endowed by our Creator with these unalienable rights. Freedom is a gift from God, and THAT’S the truth! By not speaking the truth, we may think we are gaining freedom for ourselves, but we are robbing freedom from our neighbors. The only way that everybody gets to enjoy freedom is by everybody telling the truth.
Paul told the Thessalonians that the end of history would be characterized by a perverse emphasis on freedom that refuses to love the truth. He calls it the power of lawlessness. Lawlessness is freedom without any responsible limits. Full, unfettered freedom is anarchy. The paradox of freedom is that it works best within boundaries. And guess what draws perfectly the responsible boundaries of freedom? Truth! Lawlessness has power, but it is a chaotic, destructive power. Optimum freedom has creative, progressive power – power harnessed by truth’s limits.
Jesus prayed to God the Father, “Sanctify them with the truth; Your Word is truth.” The Word has creative, progressive power. It transforms us into the holy likeness of God Himself. The greatest freedom of all is the freedom to become like God. And the Word scribes the boundaries within which we experience optimum freedom and personal transformation. That experience is salvation and sanctification. Paul writes, we are “saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”
Know the difference between freedom and lawlessness. Know that truth comes before, and informs, freedom. Love the truth, “that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Pray: God, your Word is truth. Help me to know it and apply it. Let your Word of truth truly set me free; not free to do whatever I want, but free to say ‘yes’ to godliness and ‘no’ to wickedness. Help everyone to know the difference between true freedom and its destructive counterfeit, lawlessness.
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