Growing up as a Christ-follower in the age of empowerment has been interesting.

As a society, we have been pushing and fighting to protect our freedoms. As a country, we have the unique privilege OF freedom and it’s a beautiful thing that we as a society get to live in that reality. We love our perspective of freedom and we love even MORE getting others to agree with our view points. What we hate the most is being told that we are wrong or that we don’t have the freedoms we think we do. My generation has not only clung onto our freedoms and rights for dear life, but has been actively addressing the areas we don’t have rights in yet and pushing to expand our boundaries to encompass MORE freedom.

And it’s not bad. Jesus came to bring freedom too, right? He was an activist in a lot of ways, especially to the religious culture.

But God has been showing me the WHY behind true freedom and has been revealing to me that the empowerment of His kingdom, as always, is upside down. It’s entirely different, and as Christ-followers, if we don’t understand Jesus’ agenda for freedom and what His idea of empowerment is, we will completely miss OUR purpose and what He is equipping and empowering us to do and to be and to become.

As a society, we live for ourselves, and are constantly encouraged to live for ourselves; to “do you.” So naturally, the empowerment that we experience from the world is this place of hoarding your rights and clinging to whatever is “right” for YOU. No one can take it from you, and God forbid if they ever try. This makes sense. After all they are RIGHTS. FREEDOMS. If you are living for yourself, why wouldn’t you?

But as Christ-followers, we no longer live for ourselves. Our perspective is no longer “What am I getting?” but rather, “What am I giving?” We aren’t focused on our freedoms, though we know we have them. We live in the celebration that Christ made us FREE from the law, from the list of rules, from the fear of punishment. It’s a reality we have to receive to keep us from become religious, rule-making, oppressed people (just like the Pharisees Jesus was constantly condemning.) But our purpose now isn’t simply to live in freedom–the end. We live to see others come to know Jesus and realize the freedom that only comes from Christ Jesus. Our purpose is to live our freedom out in such a way that Jesus is revealed and His glory made known through us.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6  “All things are permissible–and we are free to do anything we please, but not all things are helpful (expedient, profitable, wholesome). All things are legitimate, but not all things are constructive to character and edifying to spiritual life. Let no one then seek his own good and advantage and profit, but rather seek the good of others.”

He says again in chapter 8 (regarding laws against eating certain foods at the time) “Food will not commend us to God. We are not worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak….Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”

Again, in chapter 9, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them…I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”

True freedom lived out looks like our givenness to relinquishing our rights for the sake of others seeing Jesus in us.

We don’t live in condemnation or fear or punishment of doing all things right or wrong. We don’t live under that law. We live under Christ, who has covered every single thing with HIS blood and HIS forgiveness. But that is paired with this place of living for others, being given to the way of Christ, which was becoming a servant to others so they may see the heart of God for them. He became low so others might see their value and worth to God. He relinquished every right He had as GOD, ultimate authority over all things, and became like us to save us.

We don’t use our freedoms in Christ to live for ourselves. Every single thing we do must be looked at through the lense of “Will this choice benefit my brothers or sisters to see Christ more clearly through my life? Will this choice feed into a struggle I know this person I’m with has, even if it’s not my struggle? Will this choice create a stumbling block for someone, even if it’s not a stumbling block for me?”

We are only truly free in Christ if we can relinquish our freedoms just as easily as we can enter into them. If you are clinging so tightly to something that you have permission to do that you can’t make the choice to surrender it, then you aren’t free.

Let’s empower each other as Christ-followers to use our freedoms to bring those around us to Jesus. Let’s make choices as free people to bring wholeness and love and life and the glory of God to those around us, everywhere we are–even if it means we must abstain from things we know we have a right to. Even if it means saying no for the benefit of someone else.

This is true freedom.