Freedom Or Slavery

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God granted us all free will. When properly exercised, our choices lead towards God and towards freedom. When we make bad choices, our choices lead us into slavery and bondage to sin. In today’s message, we will take an in-depth look into this wonderful gift called Free Will.

Free will is an essential part of God’s eternal design for mankind. It’s an amazing gift. God created us as rational beings and He granted us the dignity to control our own actions. Why did God grant us this free will and why is it so important? God wanted us to be able to freely choose to seek after Him. He gave us the choice to hold on tight to Him or to cling to other gods instead. Free will offers us freedom, but the choices we make can take that freedom away.

Free will, therefore, is the ability and will to act or not to act, so as to perform a deliberate action based on our own responsibility. Yes, free will carries with it a huge responsibility. Our life is shaped by the decisions we make. When we choose to act in truth and goodness, our actions direct our path towards God. Allow me to state the most essential and vital part of free will. The more we do what is good the freer we become, and the more we act in disobedience to God’s design, the abuse of our free will makes us a slave to sin.

One thing we must always keep in mind, even though God has granted us free will, there are some limitations to that freedom. We do not exist in this world as an island unto ourselves. We do not have the right to say or do anything we want. We are individuals, but we exist as part of the community of mankind. There are social, political, cultural, and economic factors that come into play when assessing the use of our free will. Our freedom does not give us the right to trample on the freedom of others. We are also bound by moral laws and by the laws of charity to our fellow man. When we misuse our freedom, not only do we become imprisoned within ourselves, we also disrupt our social surroundings, we become un-neighborly, and in the end, this means we are rebelling against God.

We must never forget this fundamental truth. We are responsible for the deliberate acts we commit and the deliberate decisions we make. There are times, however, when our culpability for bad acts and/or decisions can be somewhat diminished or nullified. Factors such as ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, addictions, and other psychological or social factors do come into play when imputing culpability. We are not truly exercising  free will when these other factors impact our decision making process.

Yes, we have free will, but we were also born with concupiscence and an innate tendency to turn away from God. We are prone to sin. We are flawed creatures. Just as the proper use of our free will makes us freer, the more we rebel the more we are inclined to continue to rebel. Sin begets sin. Each time we give into sin, we develop a greater proclivity towards sin. Continual sinfulness goes on to corrupt our judgement of good and evil. There is no doubt that we have all experienced this in our own life. But as we all know the story does not stop here.

There is a ray of hope. Although sin reinforces our desire to keep sinning, it can never completely destroy the moral compass that God created us with. God always gives us a way out. Jesus came to save us from the slavery of sin. In the words of 1 Timothy 1:15, “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” John 3:17 states, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus has granted us the grace to help us make the best use of our free will. Jesus has also sent the Holy Spirit to guide, direct and educate us in the proper use of free will. And when we use our will properly, as I stated earlier, we grow freer, and we draw closer to God. Isn’t this after all what we all truly desire? Allow me to close with three questions that we should all ask ourselves.

• In what ways am I misusing the free will God gave me?
• Has the misuse of my free will led to my enslavement to some specific area of sinfulness?
• What choices do I need to make to regain the freedom God had planned for me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for entrusting me with the gift of free will. Please have mercy on me for the times I have misused it. Thank you for sending your Son to set me free from sin. For without Jesus, I would be condemned. Through my faith in Him, you have granted me the opportunity to enjoy everlasting life with You. Amen!

AMDG

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Brian Pusateri

Brian is a Christian author and speaker. Brian, a lifelong Catholic, felt his life was forever changed when God spoke to his heart while attending an eight day silent Christian retreat in November of 2011. Soon after that retreat Brian founded 4th Day Letters and Broken Door Ministries. With the God inspired message of mercy and unconditional love that was placed on his heart during that retreat, Brian has been impacting others all over the country and around the world with his weekly letters, his talks, and his all day Christian retreats. In June of 2014, Brian’s life was again impacted in a very dramatic way when his eyesight suddenly became permanently impaired. The initial diagnosis was Multiple Scleroses (MS) but in December of 2019 the diagnosis was corrected to MOG antibody disease, a rare neurological disease. This health challenge has only served to draw Brian closer to God and bolster the importance of this timely yet ageless message.

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