Are you set free? Recently, UN-ASSOCIATED held its 9th annual Poetry Jam and the theme was “Freedom” and those who attended and participated in the event truly experienced it. UN-ASSOCIATED’s Poetry Jam also coincided with Black History Month, another universal symbol of freedom for Black and African-Americans alike. I believe all of these coincidences are reminders from God about how imperative it is for all of us to truly grasp the freedom that each of us who has accepted and made Jesus their life’s Lord and Savior. Because many of us can speak to the fact that in this life, our emotions, and actions may try to make us believe the contrary, that we have no “freedom”, and that we are slaves to someone or something. But what Jesus did for me and you on the cross, and the Bible reminds us, that “who the son sets free is free indeed” (John 8:36 NIV). But are you living out this Biblical truth here and now in 2025?
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” – Martin Luther King Jr.
This is the statement that concluded Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and they are the only words that can explain what God did for me so long ago when I first came to Him. God delivered me from a period of crippling depression that ultimately led me to attempting to take my own life, but He saved and freed me from that circumstance. But that wasn’t the most significant thing God saved me from. God delivered me from being a slave to sexual immorality for almost a decade. What a weight off my shoulders and relief in my soul I felt! Words could never truly grasp the solace and freedom I felt, which are moments and feelings I’m pretty sure we’ve all felt at one point or another during our journey with Jesus. So I ask us all, how do we forget or even doubt the freedom we have in Jesus? Like our ancestors the Israelites of old, history always seems to repeat itself.
We, the Israelites of present times, may get comfortable or complacent, forgetting what God has done for us, and even be so entrenched in our bondage that we don’t recognize that we have left God and cling to something other than Him and relinquished our freedom (Isaiah 42:18-20 NLT).
When God freed me from my shackles of sin and bondage, of which I was a slave to for so long, I thought then God must be done working in me then. Wrong. God was just getting started. Growing up, I was the sibling that my parents made the support pillar or issue resolver for the immediate family. In hindsight, I truly lived out the saying “I am my brother’s keeper,” so much so that I ultimately became a social worker in my adult years working with children and families to resolve their problems. This dynamic was always the same in my romantic and platonic relationships as well, it felt as though my whole existence was to be just that, my brother’s keeper. Through all the good I thought I was doing and expected to, I became a people pleaser and built my whole identity on what I thought the world and others wanted and expected of me, but not that of God (Matthew 7:24-27 KJV).
God reminds and expects from us all that once we say “Yes Lord” to Him, we cannot and shall not have anyone or anything above Him in our lives (Matthew 6:24-26 KJV).
In the moments of me realizing that I couldn’t solve everything or be everything to everybody, I thought I found another thing to fix, or lack within myself. But in actuality, I found Jesus. In my weakness or areas where I didn’t know what to do, I had to rely on the One who did (2 Corinthians 12:10 KJV). To be honest, in those moments, it was disheartening, realizing all the things I felt God was and continually telling me to let go of, but in my surrendering, I found freedom. I think the hardest part is reminding ourselves of that and continuing to believe it, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
When God freed me from what I deemed my only struggles or the most glaring things I was a slave to, such as suicide and sexual immorality,I thought to myself, “well I must be good now, right? I’m finally “clean”, I’m finally free.” Just like me, some of you may think once God helps or frees us from the sins we deem the most glaring or important in our lives, then that’s it. God doesn’t have to do any more work for us anymore. Becoming more like God is a continuous journey of learning, growth, and relying on His grace to overcome our shortcomings. Right now, you might be doing a self-examination of your own life and things that you may be in bondage to due to this piece. You may think to yourself it’s a lot of things or just a few things. Just looking at all the unlearning and relearning that we as Christians may have to do in this walk with Christ may seem daunting and you may not know where to start. But the biggest obstacle has already been won – our freedom. I guess all we have to do is walk in it, right?
