Is Freedom Free?

Most of us have seen a phrase that closely resembles this…Freedom Isn’t Free.  Around that phrase you will typically find a picture of someone who has spared their life so we could be free – most often a patriotic picture of a soldier. 

You could take that phrase and apply it to Jesus by thinking of Him as giving his life for our freedom. Which, in order for something to be free there was someone who paid a price before.  When you think about freebies you receive at a place like a fair, the sponsor had to pay for it in order to give it away.  So, is freedom free?

I am going to go in a different direction and say that freedom is free.  Specifically, freedom in Christ.  It is free to you to take advantage of.  It is free to you to decide whether or not you are going to commit.  It is like a piece of money that you see on the ground.  You decide whether or not you are going to pick it up or leave it there.

When we lived in Illinois our church had a once-a-week preschool.  When I moved there we charged $10.00 per child for the whole year.  Ridiculously cheap!  Sometimes things are so cheap or free that we cannot find the value in it.  Take fashion, for example, if a line of fashion came out that cost a fraction of the high-end prices, you’d probably think they were cheaply made.  We typically find value in something that costs more.  Many material things in this world are like that – cars, houses, watches, technology, etc.

When it came to our preschool, it was probably so cheap that some people that were not familiar with it, probably didn’t find the value that it held.  If it would have cost $10.00 per month, at least, maybe it would have felt like there was more value in it.  So, not everyone took advantage of the opportunity that was before them.

Back to that "money on the street” example.  If you didn’t pick it up, someone else is bound to.  Someone else is going to take advantage of gaining a bit of wealth.  When it comes to a freedom that is found in Christ, if you don’t take advantage of it, you lose out.

In order to have the freedom, someone may have to die; to take advantage of that freedom, someone has to act.  Unlike our American freedom, which once we are born, we possess, Christian freedom is a choice.

Aside from someone dying to give us our freedoms, I challenge you to think about how freedom in Christ is totally free.  You can leave it for the next person or you can pick it up and share it with the next person.  That way, you can have the benefit and so can the next person.

Is freedom free?  In this case, YES!  The real question is, have you or will you take advantage of acquiring freedom in Christ?