I think the title of this post really says it all. I read Ephesians 4:17–30 the other morning and the question of “what is freedom?” continues to ring out in the sanctum of my mind. I know myself to be free in Christ, but what does that really look like? Is it a freedom from..? Is it freedom to..? It doesn’t help that I know my perception of freedom has been constantly changing over the past 7 or so years.

Freedom means liberty. This was the idea on which I operated the first few years I was brazen enough to explore the concept in my latter high school days. Sin now, but don’t worry because all your sins will be forgiven so long as you ask Christ to do so. Ephesians 1:7 proclaims that we have forgiveness in the blood of Christ as His followers. However, I eventually ran into this roadblock, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1–2).

OK, so that wasn’t going to work, but that brings me hardly closer to what freedom truly is. On that note, I’m just going to enumerate a few key things I’ve learned freedom not to be. First and foremost, freedom is not an absence of responsibility as then it has been reduced to a mere slavery to indulgence. Freedom is also not a lack of care or concern as that is just ignorant self-absorption. Finally, freedom is not to be hoarded. Freedom under this condition is a timid liberty that is not free at all.

We have been freed for freedom. Freedom is not a transference of slavery from one death-inducing idol to another. I am not free from self-consciousness to be shackled to pleasure in the same breath. Instead, freedom is submitting as Christ did under the authority of the Father. Freedom is a commitment to life. What is a life that is not free? Pardon the leading nature of that question, but I think you get my point here. The underlying fact of freedom is that we as humans created in the image of God (following the example of God in flesh Himself) must submit to the authority of something. Therefore, why not submit to the only truly good and loving master that there can ever be?

These are merely the ever-changing thoughts that have been informed by but a couple short decades on this earth. They are inherently flawed, but maybe they’re not completely off-base. In any case, what are your thoughts on the matter? What is freedom to you? What is it not?