Free to Serve

There's something beautifully contradictory about the Christian life that confounds human logic. We gain everything by surrendering everything. We find our lives by losing them. We become great by becoming servants. And perhaps most puzzling of all: we find true freedom by becoming slaves to love.

This paradox sits at the heart of what it means to follow Christ, and it's a truth that challenges both our natural inclinations and the world's understanding of liberty.

Created for Freedom

Before you took your first breath, before your parents even met, before the foundations of the world were laid—you were loved. You were chosen. You were called to be free.

This isn't some motivational poster sentiment. This is the staggering reality of the gospel.

We enter this world bearing something no other creature can claim: we are image-bearers of God. Not the angels with their terrifying, multi-winged glory. Not the animals we cherish. Only humanity carries this divine imprint, this sacred stamp that declares we are created in the very likeness of our Creator.

Yet despite this incredible privilege, we also enter the world shackled. We're born into bondage to sin, wrapped in chains we didn't forge but inherited nonetheless. It's a prison we don't even recognize when we're young, and some never recognize at all.

But here's the extraordinary news: God sent His Son to die on a cross to set you free before you even knew you needed freeing. The price for your liberation was paid in full while you were still His enemy, still oblivious to your captivity, still content in your chains.

The Danger of Returning to Prison

So why would anyone who has tasted freedom want to go back to prison?

Yet this is exactly what happens when we allow legalism to creep back into our faith. We start building new prisons with rules and regulations, checks and balances, spiritual to-do lists that we convince ourselves will make us more acceptable to God.

Did I pray long enough today? I only managed twenty-five minutes instead of thirty.

I've started that read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan forty-two times and still haven't finished.

I shouldn't have worn this to church. I should have done more. I should be better.

These self-imposed yokes become just as binding as the law that Christ freed us from. We take the glorious gift of grace and turn it into a performance evaluation, a spiritual report card where we're constantly grading ourselves and—let's be honest—grading others too.

The Jewish people under the Old Testament law understood the crushing weight of trying to maintain perfect obedience. It was impossible. That's why the sacrificial system existed—innocent animals constantly shedding blood to cover sins that kept accumulating. It was never meant to be sustainable. It was meant to point forward to the perfect Lamb of God who would shed His blood once for all, covering sins from everlasting to everlasting.

Why would we want to return to that kind of bondage?

Freedom Isn't License

But here's where we need to pump the brakes. Freedom in Christ doesn't mean we can do whatever we want without consequence. Grace isn't a free pass to indulge every desire of our flesh.

Just because we can be forgiven doesn't mean we should live carelessly. If we're constantly choosing sin while claiming God's grace, we have to question whether we truly love God at all. Love naturally produces obedience—not a grudging, rule-following obedience, but a joyful desire to please the One who saved us.

Everything God created was good. Music, art, beauty, pleasure—all good gifts from a good Father. But humanity has a terrible habit of perverting and corrupting the good things God gives us. We take freedom and twist it into license. We take grace and cheapen it into presumption.

The flesh will always be a struggle. Every day we'll face the temptation to indulge what we know we shouldn't. Maybe it's literal donuts when we're trying to be healthier. Maybe it's gossip, pride, lust, greed, or any number of other desires that war against our souls.

Legalism itself becomes a sign that we're walking in the flesh rather than the Spirit. When we start making Christianity about our checklist rather than Christ's finished work, we've missed the point entirely. We're trying to procure on our own what can only be received as a gift.

The Purpose of Freedom

So if freedom isn't for self-indulgence, what's it for?

Christian freedom is freedom to love and therefore freedom to serve.

This is where the beautiful paradox deepens. In linking ourselves to Christ, we've linked ourselves to fellow believers. True freedom is realized in what we might call "the slavery of love."

Jesus demonstrated this perfectly. While we were still sinners—still His enemies, still rebellious, still lost—Christ died for us. That's the clearest picture of love's slavery. He gave up everything, humbled Himself, became obedient to death on a cross, all to set captives free.

In Matthew 22, Jesus summed up the entire law this way: Love God with everything you have—heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Everything hangs on these two commands.

When you get the first one right—when you truly love God with your whole being—the second follows naturally. If God loves through you, you will love others. It's not complicated, though it's far from easy.

This is how someone can look their abuser in the eye and say, "I forgive you." This is how believers can serve people who take and take and never give back. This is how we can minister without recognition, give without receiving, and sacrifice without reward—because God loves us, and we love Him, and that love overflows to others.

What Love Looks Like

Here's the wonderful thing: love in action looks different for everyone.

Maybe you're the person who shows up with a casserole when tragedy strikes. Maybe you're the one who drops everything to help someone move or fix their car. Maybe your gift is intercessory prayer—you hear of a need and immediately hit your knees before the throne of God.

Some people joke about "thoughts and prayers" being insufficient, but anyone who has walked through deep grief knows the truth: you can feel the prayers of the saints. There's a tangible comfort, an unexplainable peace that comes from knowing people are lifting you up before God.

Maybe your way of loving is simply offering a hug at the right moment. Maybe it's using your home, your resources, your time, or your talents to bless others.

The point isn't that everyone's service should look identical. God has gifted each of us uniquely. The danger comes when we start dictating what Christian service should look like, creating new rules about how people should express their faith.

That's legalism rearing its ugly head again.

The Cost of Division

When we start setting artificial standards for what Christianity should look like, we create division. We begin biting and devouring one another rather than building each other up. The gossip starts, the judgment flows, and people begin to feel unwelcome in the very place they should feel most at home.

Every believer should be able to walk into any church that claims Christ and feel welcomed, regardless of their clothes, their background, their past, or their struggles. We should all have the same God, all be filled with the same Spirit, all be united in the same gospel.

But when we impose unnecessary standards—dress codes, behavioral requirements, cultural expectations—we hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. We build walls instead of bridges. We create insiders and outsiders in a kingdom where there should be neither.

The Simple Gospel

At the end of the day, the gospel is beautifully simple.

There's no checklist to complete to earn your way to heaven. There's no amount of good works that will tip the scales in your favor. There's only one item on the list: Receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

That's it.

He's done the heavy lifting. He's paid the penalty. He's offered the gift freely.

Imagine if your mortgage company called and said someone had paid off your entire loan—you just needed to come sign the papers to receive the clear title. You'd probably show up early, right?

The gospel is infinitely better than that. God isn't offering to pay off your earthly mortgage; He's offering to secure your eternal home. The question is: will you receive it?

You don't have to clean yourself up first. You don't have to get your act together. You don't have to understand all the theology or memorize all the verses. You just have to come to the cross and receive what Christ is offering.

And when you do, you'll discover what true freedom really means—not the freedom to do whatever you want, but the freedom to become who you were always meant to be: a child of God, an image-bearer set free to love and serve in the beautiful