I’m free to do what I want any old time.
Who knew The Rolling Stones’ song from 1965 would come to resonate so deeply with a people? Who would have imagined they would sing it for more than 40 years and that it would eventually become the tune for an advertising campaign for a credit card company?
But is that really freedom? Or is that just egocentric individualism run amuck?
We live in a free society, but are we free to do whatever we want whenever we want?
The answer is, in one sense, yes. We are free to hurl obscenities at the driver who cuts us off. We are free to steal from our offices. We are free to cheat on our spouses and on our taxes. Sort of.
But there are consequences.
You may get caught. Your spouse may divorce you. Your boss may fire you. The HMRC may audit you, and the driver in front of you may get out of his car and punch you in the nose.
Worse, no one may ever find out. You may never get caught, but there will still be consequences. You’ll become an even more impatient, untrustworthy, self-indulgent person who lives isolated and alienated from others.
In other words, if you allow your freedom to become license for over-indulgence, you’ll end up enslaved to your appetites. The choice isn’t between limitation and freedom. Rather, the choice is whom you will allow to set your limits.
The apostle Paul says that you can set the limits for yourself. You can use your freedom in that way, to indulge yourself. However, that approach is disastrous when you try to live it out — especially when you try to live it out in the context of community with others (Gal 5:13-15).
His solution is not to give up your freedom; his solution is to concentrate less on what you’ve been set free from and more on what you’ve been set free for. If Jesus has set you free, you’re free to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit now rather than your own selfish interests. And if you follow the leading of the Spirit, you have no need for the Law to tell you what’s right and wrong. The Holy Spirit can be trusted to guide you wisely and well (Gal 5:18).
Selfish living sounds good for a while, but it always leads to boring repetition. It cheapens life and love. It’s characterised by frenzied activity with diminishing returns, momentary but fleeting fits of happiness. It inevitably leads to loneliness and jealousy and an increasing inability to love or receive love from others. It always promises more than it can deliver.
You’re now free to live like that, if you like.
But you’re also free now to live a different way, a better way. You’re free to live life in the Spirit. You can live a life of affection and enthusiasm. You can have a peace that defies your circumstances. You can endure hardships with joy. You can stand up for your convictions fearlessly and show compassion to others. You can keep your commitments and enjoy relationships without manipulation.
You’re now free to live like that, if you like.
That kind of life won’t come about through any kind of legalistic observance of rules, though. Legalism only gets in the way. The way to gain that kind of life — the kind of life you’ve always wanted but have never been able to achieve on your own — is by surrendering on a daily basis to the guidance of God’s Spirit.
Prayer
Father, Your Word teaches that the freedom You have given us in Christ is not the libertarian freedom to do whatever we want to do. That form of freedom leads to selfishness and the painful consequences of self-indulgence. When we try to do things in our way and in our timing, this ultimately diminishes our freedom, because we are attempting to live life on our own terms. Too many of us who profess to be followers of Christ are trying to play by two sets of rules at once. But You have made it clear that we must choose to serve only one master. Service to the world and to self is not freedom, but bondage. But service to Christ Jesus is the source of perfect freedom. As I follow You and live life in Your Spirit, new options open up before me. Now as I walk by the Spirit, I can choose to be pleasing to You and to reflect the righteousness of Your Son.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
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