Every Longing Heart
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Today’s Reading: Romans 8
A couple of days ago, we touched briefly on how a creation without free will wouldn’t be good. Pain is in the world due to sin, which is in the world due to free will. Think about what existence would be without free will. If we have no agency, no autonomy, no will of our own, there is no room for relationship. We would be robots.
Love is only love if we choose to give it. Take marriage as an example. A marriage by arrangement (perhaps due to culture), obligation (perhaps due to pressure or political alliance), or necessity (perhaps due to poverty) is not really a love relationship. Taking that a step further, what if one spouse were just a slave to the other? Freedom to choose is absolutely necessary for real relationship, which is what God wants.
As it is, we are volitional creatures. God made us that way. So our desire for freedom is inherent. But what if we aren’t actually free, even when we think we are?
Scripture teaches that because of the Fall, we are all enslaved. We are slaves to sin. We actually do not have a choice about our nature. What we can choose is whether or not to remain a slave. (Recall our devotion on Truth.)
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34-36 NIV)
I know so many Christians who thought they would never overcome certain temptations. Each decision to indulge that sin was a link in the chain that enslaved them to it. For some, those chains broke at the moment of salvation. But more often, it takes the Holy Spirit time to convince us to release our grip on what’s binding us.
Sin is a familiar and deceptive slavemaster, but a slavemaster nonetheless. We need someone to purchase our freedom and strengthen us so we can leave! Jesus wrote the check to buy our freedom; we just need to walk out of the prison cell.
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
(Colossians 1:13—14 NIV)
Would you choose a prison cell and a death sentence, or would you choose the Judge’s pardon, because Someone paid for you to walk out as a free man? (Don’t let the enemy convince you that, just because the prison looks more fun, this choice is any less obvious.) Jesus was sent to do this very thing.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” (Isaiah 61:1 NIV)
Once you receive your freedom, remain in it. Let His light warm your face. Let Him bind up the wounds from your shackles. Let Him clothe you in His righteousness. Let Him nourish your heart and revive your soul.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1 NIV)
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you.” (John 15:4 NIV)
And now, being released from the slavery of sin and death, we are free to live in the Spirit. I have often spoken about Christians having that one hidden closet in our hearts to which we don’t give God access. We keep our favorite sin(s) in there. Real freedom is when we cut that last chain, give God access to that last corner, and rebuke that last temptation. God can help us do that! The Spirit works in our hearts to bring us to where we don’t want the things we used to. He can change our affections! God can, and does, give us full freedom from those things we thought we’d never be rid of.