Who’s more liberated: the Christian or the non-believer?
I’ve been asked to write this article about who’s more liberated – Christians or non-believers. For the sake of this writing, let’s define the Christians as true Christ-followers and the non-believers as everyone else (including those who think they follow Christ).
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Now the question is who is more liberated. The word is defined, on http://www/dictionary.com/ in these ways:
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· to set free, a from imprisonment or bondage
· to free from control by a foreign or oppressive governing body
· to free from social or economic constraints or discrimination
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So we have this word … liberated. On it seems to hang the balance of the Christian faith versus all other forms of faith or even the absence of faith. Many of us who are Christ-followers could give testimonies of being freed from an imprisoning bondage.
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To be perfectly honest, I’m not exactly thrilled with this assignment. Writing an essay in favor of Christianity that centers on the notion of liberation feels like a no-win situation.
By that I mean that liberation is a relative term for just about all of us.
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History of U.S. Slavery
The United States of America has an ugly history of slavery that revolves around the black Africans. They were slaves in the U.S. and went through a valiant battle for their freedom. But when they got it, things didn’t quite go as they --- or anyone else expected.
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History tells how (Abraham) Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_proclamation) to start the process of eventually freeing all of the slaves in the country. When he first signed it, many of them didn’t automatically begin to live free. There were a variety of reasons for this.
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Perhaps the biggest surprise was the slaves who didn’t want to be free. They had masters (i.e. slave owners) whom they saw as decent and reasonable. They figured they had a pretty good life as slaves … and they weren’t willing to trade it for an unknown life of freedom. So they continued as voluntary slaves.
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But the majority of slaves who didn’t live free when they were legally free had much more tragic stories. In some cases, the slave owners didn’t want them to know they were free. So they hid the truth from them, and blocked the slaves from having any knowledge that they were free. In other cases, there were slaves who knew they were free … but their masters (i.e., owners) lied to them and told them they were still slaves.
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In some instances, slaves found out they were free and tried to live free. But their former masters (i.e., owners) would coerce them into continuing to live as slaves. Usually this would happen when they tried to leave the plantation where they had been enslaved. The former master (i.e., owner) would chase after them. When he caught them, they were beaten and dragged back to the plantation to continue living as slaves.
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Now whose story would you consider to be more tragic? The slaves who knew they were free, but had benevolent masters and voluntarily surrendered their freedom? Or the slaves who continued to live as slaves because of their own ignorance or because of oppression? Most of us, if we’re truthful, would probably agree that the slave who had a benevolent master and wished to continue serving him might have had the happiest ending here.
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Human Slavery vs. Liberty
The point is that just because the world (and the law) defined them as free didn’t mean that all of America’s slaves actually lived any differently. It took something else. They each had to claim their freedom. They each had to access and appropriate their freedom. Sometimes that took a fight. It often took courage. They were plunging into a life of unknown outcomes. Few, if any, black Africans had ever lived free in American society. Nobody knew how that would look or how it might turn out.
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There are some very strong similarities in this story and the modern concept of liberty. I have worked for years in a recovery ministry (http://www.celebraterecovery.com/). It operates on many of the principles of secular twelve-step programs, but uses Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) as the basis for its core tenets. Its objective is to free people from the bondage of addictions, compulsive behaviors and other hurts, habits and hang-ups that keep us from living the lives that God intended.
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Inevitably, the people who participate in that recovery ministry have stories that are uniquely characteristic of the American slavery experience from the 1800’s. At first, they believe they are free. As adults they can make supposedly free choices to do things like abuse alcohol or use pornography. At the beginning of their relationship with these vices, they believed that being able to choose to do these things was a right or freedom that they were simply exercising. But in the end – when they sought help from a recovery ministry – most have no trouble admitting that the vice which they thought represented freedom and liberty had indeed enslaved them.
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As I’ve worked in this program, I’ve been able to make a rather odd observation. It occurs when the participant starts to walk in true freedom. Invariably, they will come upon a major milestone in life, such as Christmas. And as they do, they will make a comment that goes something like this: “I’m a bit nervous about Christmas this year. It’s the first year I can remember where I was sober. The truth is, I don’t know how to do Christmas sober. So I’m afraid. What will Christmas be like?”
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What they’re really saying of course is that they don’t know how to do Christmas free. They don’t know how truly liberated people live at Christmas or how they celebrate Christmas. It’s a whole new paradigm for these people. And it goes without saying that you could plug any holiday or milestone, Easter, wedding, anniversary, family reunion, etc. into that sentence and get the same effect. People don’t know how to do life free.
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Freedom & Liberation
I suspect the same may be true of Christianity. There may be people who are trapped in bondage. They may be aware of the Lord. And they may believe that He exists. But they don’t really know Him. And because they are ignorant of what His freedom looks like, they are willing to settle for what they have. They aren’t particularly interested in knowing how others live.
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To these people, liberation is an intimidating proposition … that they aren’t so willing to embrace. They know how to live with what they’ve got. They’ve developed coping mechanisms that, in their opinion, work. And because they don’t know how anything else works --- they fear the unknown. Moreover, they are unwilling to walk into that unknown. What if the Lord doesn’t meet me there? What if I don’t know how to act? What if I can’t handle it? Their minds are filled with those “What if …?” statements.
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The real issue for most people in bondage then is what freedom looks like. How do truly liberated people really live? Most of us would agree that people who are truly free in life probably live lives that aren’t encumbered by some of the boundaries that the rest of us must live with.
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Rich people, for example, aren’t bound by the need to work. They aren’t bound by insufficient funds to satisfy whatever whim may strike them. Go anywhere. Buy anything. Do anything. That is our perception of what freedom looks like.
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But ask people who live that kind of life. More often than not, they’ll tell you that wealth is a burden. They’ll tell you that it taints their relationships. Maybe they’re afraid to get too close to people, for example, out of fear that those people are only after their money (versus their friendship). Maybe they find themselves arguing about money – or being afraid to lose it (because they don’t know how to be poor).
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I counseled a man once, who sat in my office at the church and sobbed about what an immense burden his wealth was. He hated the mansion and saw it as a prison. He loathed riding in the limousine – and yearned for the ability to just drive around town by himself. He believed that his immense wealth had ruined his kids’ lives.
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So the point here is that the concept of being free, or being liberated, tends to be both subjective and abstract. By that I mean that the truth of worldly freedom tends to be relative … it is designed by its circumstances. At the same time, the world’s definition of freedom is so abstract that few can really comprehend or grasp it.
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Defining Freedom
The book of John in the New Testament is a wonderful book of truth. It is the story of Jesus’ life and Jesus’ message, as told from John’s perspective. In John 8:31-47, we see a story of Jesus getting into what amounts to an argument. And as arguments go, this one is most odd. Jesus is arguing with a group of Jews (God’s chosen people) who actually believe that Christ is who He says He is, and who actually want to listen to Him and hear what He has to day.
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The point of disagreement arises however, when Jesus talks to them about who they are really the children of. In a nutshell, they see themselves has having a human ancestry – and rather pedigreed one at that. Jesus, on the other hand, sees them as slaves. He believes they lack basic liberties. Despite their claims, their so-called facts and their beliefs, Jesus doesn’t agree that they are liberated people.
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So how did Jesus see this bondage … or this slavery? He saw it as deception. In fact, it is here that we learn of one of the enemy’s (Satan) most basic forms of enslavement. It is here that we learn one of Satan’s most effective tools is to make people think they are free, when in fact they are slaves. They are in bondage to the vices of the world that they thought they were free to pursue. They’ve been deceived into believing that getting what you want when you want it is what freedom is. So if they get what they want when they want it, they conclude that they must be free indeed.
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But Jesus defines freedom quite differently from the world’s standards. He says that our entire purpose in life is to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all of your mind.” (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, & Luke 10:27) Similarly, we are to, “Love others as we would like to be loved.” (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:43, 19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8).
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Did you catch that? It’s the most important paragraph in this article. We were created. And the Creator defined our purpose. As such, He also defined our freedom. He defined our liberation.
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Have you ever created anything? Perhaps you bake bread, or build furniture or sew. Whatever it is you create … consider how it functions. If you baked bread, for example, would it be just as good serving as a door stop? Or if you sew a dress, would it be just as good functioning as a mop? Of course not. Each of the things created is at its best when it serves the purpose for which it was created. Even a birthday cake, for example, would struggle to function as a wedding dress – or vice versa. So the thing is that the Creator defines the purpose of the created. And in doing so, the Creator creates the definition of freedom or liberty for the created.
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True Freedom
Mankind was created by God. And our sole purpose is to serve God. We do that in two ways. First, we love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind. We devote everything to Him and live with Him as our clearest focus and highest priority. Secondly, we love others. And we love them in the same way that He loves us. We love others the way we would ourselves like to be loved. This is the sole purpose of mankind on this earth. As such, it is the sole definition of freedom or liberty for mankind.
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The problem comes into play when we are deceived. Or it occurs when we are simply ignorant. We are deceived about our purpose. Or we are ignorant of our purpose. And this deception? This ignorance? They are the work of the devil. They are the product of the fallen world around us.
Christians, however, are not to participate in the world’s values and its definitions. (Romans 12:2)
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Rather our true identity lies in our citizenship outside of this world. (Philippians 3:20) We are aliens on this planet earth. God created mankind in His own image. (Genesis 1:27). Therefore we are first spiritual beings, on assignment to have a human experience here on earth. But we live as foreigners, aliens in this world. We are called to rise above the world’s ways – not embracing or even co-habitating with them.
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Conclusion
I started this article by asking the question, “Who is more liberated … the Christian or the non-believer.” The answer to that question is undeniably the Christian. When we grasp the true definition of what it means to be liberated … free and content, we understand that it means to live one’s own purpose. And the only people on earth who can do that are the people who surrender their lives and submit themselves to God.
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Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) Being the obstinate character that I am, I can confess to having tested that. And through my own experiential learning, I’ve come to understand that there is no truth apart from Jesus Christ. Said differently, truth gets its character from Christ. He is the source of what is known as absolute truth.
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So being that Jesus is God and Jesus is truth, then Jesus is the only one capable of producing a true definition of freedom. He’s followed in His Father’s footsteps, and defined freedom as living our purpose … in serving Him and loving others as He would love them Himself.
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So who is more liberated? The Christian or the non-believer? I said before that it is clearly the Christian. The closest that anyone will ever get to freedom outside of Christ is deception. That is to say they will be deceived about what freedom or liberty are. And they will be deceived about whether or not they posses this counterfeit version of freedom. Make no mistake: the non-believer walks in total darkness --- and in immense bondage. Whether they know it or not or whether they believe it or not, they are not free. Only Jesus can set them free.
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