Just how free are you allowing yourself to be?

So you like the idea of freedom do you? Then I assume you’ve learned to order off the menu.

Huh?

Most choices in life are offered off a “menu,” a selection of items to choose from …

… Don’t like the Republicans? Democrats are an option on the menu …

… Don’t like the Democrats? Republicans can be selected instead …

… Don’t like what cable offers? Get satellite! …

… Don’t like shopping in malls? There’s lots of mom-and-pop shops to choose from …

… Don’t like chain restaurants? Choose from hole-in-the-wall cafes …

… Don’t like Ford trucks? Drive a Chevy! …

But here’s a problem. We often let someone else create the menu. What we think are the choices we have before us are often just a very few options still picked by others. The selection of choices before us is often broader than the menu others, the world, or Satan wants to provide for us. By letting others create the menu, we still operate from a constrained freedom of choices.

We think we love freedom, but many of us don’t have the courage to march to the beat of a different drummer, even when that would be our first choice. That’s true even in our Christian beliefs. Instead of searching the Word of God to see for ourselves the whole menu of freedom He offers, we allow others to draw up a short-changed menu for us. The result is often enslaving ourselves to the offerings of someone else’s menu, something the Apostle Paul tells us not to do …

“So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law,” Galatians 5:1.

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love,” Galatians 5:13.

Are you ordering off the menu from the whole Word of God? Or are you curtailing your freedom by letting others determine the content of your menu?

Scotty