Are We Really Free?

I watched a movie recently about slavery and all of it’s brutality. There were parts of the movie that were very hard to watch. The cruelty one human being would inflict on another is mindboggling. The beatings and harsh living conditions that slaves throughout the centuries have had to endure got me wondering about my present living conditions.

We are a so called “free society.” We can come and go pretty much as we please, providing we meet certain requirements. One is, that we are financially able. Secondly, we don’t have any previous contractual agreements such as work or school. I looked at my mortgage documents the other day and I was taken back by the fact that I had signed my life away for 30 years. I did the same thing with a new car, some furniture and a credit card. I have spent the next 3 decades of my life based on my present salary. I am not only obligated to pay the bills, but I am also obligated to pay taxes and  insurance. Even considering this I am well off compared to 99 percent of the population on earth. I have received a good education, and I am capable of providing for myself. My family is in reasonable health and we have free time each day to spend as we please.

I started looking at those around me here in the good old United States of America who were not as fortunate  as we are. There is a large group of people who have never owned a house, or a car for that matter, and I feel the government has a larger hand in controlling their lives. Their food, housing, and health insurance  are subsidized. Their income is based on an educational system that has obviously failed to produce qualified workers who are adequately compensated. They are told what they can buy at the grocery store, they are told where they can live, and they are shown which doctors will care for them.

I did a little math out of curiosity. When I was young I worked at a convenience store after school. The minimum wage was 1.65 per hour. Here we are some 43 years later and the minimum wage is 7.25 per hour. I took a Snickers bar as an example. The price of a candy bar when I was in high school was .10. Today that same candy bar in a convenience store  is 1.19, that is a 1200 percent increase. If you take the minimum wage of 1.65 and multiply it by 1200 percent you get 19.80 per hour. I, for one, do not believe that the average person working for 7.25 per hour wants the government controlling their food, housing, and health insurance. I believe if they were paid base on the current price of a candy bar they would control their welfare  themselves. In many ways we are still up to the same old tricks, making slaves out of honest, hard working people.

There was a Bible verse used in the movie that was, of course, taken completely out of context. It is Luke 12:47-48 “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.  But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. The slave owner was using this text to proclaim his authority to punish a slave for not abiding by the slave owner’s rules. It is a verse that can be very startling to many who believe the Word of God and do not abide by the God’s will. It is important to look at the verses just before this to understand what Jesus was talking about. In Luke 12:35-40  Jesus says, “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning,  like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.  It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.  It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.  But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.” Now as to the day and time of His return we do not know. However  many of us are living our lives as if He will never return. We are living out of the will of God. Our so called “free society” may not be very free at all as far as making our way through this life. However our society is morally free. Free to do sexually as we please. Free to consume drugs and alcohol as we please. Now, I can hear the debate on drugs. Our society says, “they are illegal,” but they are tolerated in every way. You have drug companies advertising on television constantly. You have street level drugs that are permitted entry in the United Sates. No one can tell me a country with our military might that controls the free world can’t stop drugs from crossing our border. There are countries that make their livelihood providing Americans with drugs.

We are a society that is controlled by inadvertent circumstantial  suffusion.  We are a product that is not a result  of deliberate planning.  Our circumstances has discolored our view of reality. We are bombarded daily by the greatest control mechanism ever created. We have it in every home in America. It is the best propaganda machine that was ever created. The poorer we are the more we are able to afford it. I have watched children become instantly addicted to it. Every single one of us spends hours a day watching television. Our view of reality is warped by it. It controls our mind. It controls what and where we eat. It controls what we wear. It controls where we want to live, what we want to drive, and what we want to do in our so called free time.

Now sandwiched in between our last two Bible verses is Luke 12:41-46   Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?” The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time?  It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.  Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.  But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk.  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. NIV  This is what most of us are doing. If we are going to church at all. If we have any kind of relationship with our Heavenly Father at all. If we are making any morally correct decisions at all it is far to little, and one day we are going to be caught in the act of living like the servants are living above.

We have separated our country from God. We have separated our schools from God. We have separated ourselves from God. Not because we don’t believe, but because we don’t follow His commandments anymore. There is a description of our modern day society in 2 Timothy 3:2-5 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,  unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,  traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! NKJV  “Having a  form of godliness but denying its power.” This is our greatest sin. We believe there is a God. We believe what He says is true, but we disregard His power by our actions.

Many are drinking and partying our life away thinking that he will never return. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Galatians 6:3,7-8

Now I would like for you to look at your life for a minute. Look around your home and your car. Think about how much time you really have you can call your own. Where there is not a single outside influence directing your every move. Are we really free? I think not, my friend. I think we are the most enslaved people that has ever lived on this earth. Every minute detail of our life is controlled. A lot of people work so much they dream about work. They can’t even escape it in their sleep.

I have found freedom. I have found a place where I can go and separate myself from this world. Call it an escape mechanism if you will, but I can go to my Heavenly Father in prayer and be free. No one can take this from you. I can find myself a quiet corner and read my Bible and be free from the control this life has over me. I do this by putting on the new self, by seeking things that are above where Christ is seated.  In Colossians 3 we read, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is yourlife, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” We separate the new self from the things we know in our mind are wrong and against the will of God. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” It is because of our disobedience of these things in our society, that the wrath of God will come upon us. “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices  and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” A renewal of the new self where there is no color anymore. Where there isn’t any classes of people anymore. Where all slavery is abolished and we look upon one another as equal, as members of the family of God. So put on a new self with a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, forgiving one another. Just like our Lord Jesus Christ forgave us. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Now that is freedom my friend. Freedom from the constraints of this world. Now you know the truth, and the truth will set you free. For it is written, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, Who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding (praying) for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. NIV