by Stephen Knoblock

Alex Haley once said that "You can never enslave a man who knows who he is!" Yet, often we forget our freedom as Christians! Jesus said in John 8:32 "and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." This leaves us with two questions:

What is the truth?

What Am I free of?

From what God tells us in the scriptures, we know that the truth is Jesus Christ - "I am the way, and the truth, and the life..." (John 14:6). As Christians we have received Him (Jesus Christ) as our very life! Knowing the truth of our identity in Christ is the Key to Freedom.

If Jesus is the truth then what has He set us free from? Our Old Man! Our old identity in Adam died with Christ at the cross upon our salvation and we were resurrected with Christ. We still wrestle with the flesh, our old ways of trying to live apart from God, but the flesh is no longer our natural way of living for we are now saints and no longer sinners!

Once a Christian realizes his Old Man is dead and that he is now alive in Christ, he begins to experience freedom. Our challenge is now to live free! "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).

As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us -- that He is our true self -- we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to express the freedom of the children of God.
--Henri Nouwen