If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

–Jesus (in John 8:31and 32)

If we hold onto the teachings of Jesus, we will know the truth, which will set us free.

Since so many people are adamant they have the truth, why do we not see anybody who is free?

Take whatever religious system you are involved in. Most seem to claim they have the truth and every other religion is wrong (they may dress this up with kind language, but the main point, if we honestly drill down, is that I’m right and you’re wrong). Yet I have never seen a whole group of people living in the freedom Jesus promises. I have seen individuals living in more freedom than most, but even that is rare.

Why is freedom so difficult to obtain if truth sets us free?

Many will say they are free. Americans will say that freedom is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They may take it further and say freedom is the ability to say what you want, worship who you want, bear arms, and be secure in their own homes without government intrusion.

And Americans would be partially right. But I think the freedom Jesus was talking about was so much more. I think true freedom would include freedom from fear and anxiety, freedom from depression, freedom from the slavery of sin, freedom from hatred, freedom from hunger and disease and destruction.

So if we are still living in fear, and sin, and under the rule of hatred, we are not truly free.

Personally, I know I am not free, and I suspect we all live with varying degrees of freedom. Freedom is not necessarily about where you live, as some prisoners are more free than many who are not in captivity.

I have noticed in myself a growth in the fruit of the Spirit over the past fifteen years. I am free of substance abuse and antidepressants and many other things in my life that were imprisoning me as a younger adult. Some of these things have taken years to break free of, and others quickly shed off me as I leaned into this loving Father who is constantly revealing truth.

I have many other prisons in my life, and will never be completely free while I am on this side of the fulfilled Kingdom, but I am able to see growth through the years.

For me, this growth began when I finally admitted the “truth” I had held onto my entire life was not working for me. I became honest with God. He cannot reveal truth, and fix your broken parts, if you are unwilling to admit you are broken, and you have a flawed understanding of God; to admit your religion has a flawed understanding of God.

Once I began to be honest with myself about this god that did not always seem good, it opened the door for hard discussions with Him and the revelation of truth, which has begun to set me free.