Free to be me?

The freedom to be yourself is one of the fundamental rights that modern society seeks to protect.

At first glance there are parts of this that the Christian can agree with. God has made us who we are and we don’t need to change ourselves just to please others. There is freedom to express who we are as unique parts of God’s creation.

As Christians the goal then is to glorify God with who we are. This means that our individual expressions are always tempered by serving God within the bounds he has created.

This will especially mean a willingness to forgo some of our individuality in order to love and serve others.

However once God is removed from the picture any boundaries of expressions are also removed.

Each person has the right to think and believe whatever they want about themselves. You are then free to express yourself however you choose. In fact, you must express yourself.

Forget about what everyone else thinks or the impact you have on them. Without God there is no limit to this, no morality that will constrain you. Life is about you and your fulfilment, finding out who you are then expressing the desires you have found.

So in the 70’s it was sexual freedom; material freedom (ie greed) in the 80’s; then came freedom of sexual orientation and now it is even freedom from gender.

It is a sad irony that this relentless push for freedom is actually an expression of the slavery that sin has brought into the world. (Romans 6). But all that sin offers us is death (6:23).

Freedom is found not in being who we want to be, but in whom God wants us to be.

In Jesus we are set free from sin (6:18). We now have the freedom to really live, for this is the gift that God gives (6:23).

SIMON CHAPLIN