How Will You Use Your Freedom?

 Martin Luther asked "As a Christian, how will you use your freedom?"

As I pondered Step 57 of Steps to Knowledge, “Freedom is with me,” I recalled Martin Luther‘s treatise “On the Freedom of a Christian,” written in 1520.  Many Christians are familiar with this work.  There is a quotation from this work that many people remember:

“A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

Martin Luther used the words of Paul to elaborate on this seeming paradox.

“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (I Corinthians 9:19-23, New International Version)

How will you use your freedom?

Freedom is never just freedom from some restricting influence or circumstance.  Freedom is freedom to be someone, freedom to do something.  But what?

The word “freedom” isn’t mentioned in Steps to Knowledge until Step 52 “I am free to find the source of my Knowledge.”  What does Steps to Knowledge say we should get free from?

“You who have lived under the weight of your own imagination, you who have been a prisoner to your own thoughts and to the thoughts of others, you who have been intimidated and threatened by the appearances of this world now have hope, for true freedom abides within you.”

Other things to get free from in Step 57 are unforgiveness from the past, anxiety over the future, and avoidance of the present.

But what are we getting free to?  Step 52 offers a brief description:

“What other freedom is free except that which enables you to receive the gift of your true life? All other freedom is the freedom to be chaotic, the freedom to harm yourself. The great freedom is to find your Knowledge and to allow it to express itself through you.”

In studying Steps to Knowledge, we are getting free to be our true selves, true selves which are not apart from life.  We are getting free to fulfill the mission we have in life.  Will we succeed?  All I know is that we’re working on it.

What are you getting free from?  What are you getting free to?  How will you use your freedom?

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