What You Need to Know About Christian Freedom

In our culture today, it can be really easy to boil Christianity down to a whole lot of rule-following. But is that really what believing in God is all about? In this article, you’ll learn what you really need to know about Christian freedom.

Christian freedom

If you’re a Christian, then at some point in your life you heard the gospel message and decided to become a believer in Jesus. For most Christians, this means you believe Jesus is the Son of God and that He came to earth, lived among us, and then gave up his own life so that our sins could be forgiven.

Jesus’ death on the cross is the anchor for the Christian freedom that we have today. When he sacrificed himself, it enabled us to be forgiven for the mistakes that we’ve made. His sacrifice means we can go to heaven and be forever at peace with God. These are just a few of the benefits of freedom in Christ. But when we discuss this freedom we’ve been given, we also have to talk about the responsibility that it brings.

Christian freedom and responsibility

If you look up Christian freedom verses, one of the very first ones you’ll find is 2 Corinthians 3:17.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

But we also have to take a look at verses like Galatians 5:13-14 which says,

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Visit any church or Christian community these days and you’ll sense pretty quickly that there’s definitely a disconnect between rule followers vs rule breakers who call themselves Christians. In American culture especially, we’ve boiled down the idea of Christianity to a list of Christian rules to live by. If you’re a Christian, that means you do this, but you don’t do that. But by doing this, we’re minimizing the bigger picture

Don’t get me wrong – when we give our life to Christ there are some things that should change.

We should want to let go of any addictions that we have. We should want to love other people and to speak kindly of other people. We should want to serve other people.

There are definitely attributes of God that we want to take on ourselves, and that’s what God commands us to do. But being a Christian in reality is just about the power of Christ living in us. It’s about us putting him first and letting him take over and change who we are as people for the better.

Christian freedom and Responsibility

Christian liberty and why it matters

Somewhere along the way, in our churches and Christian communities, we’ve latched on to this idea that being a Christian is about rule-following.

When you become a Christian or if you believe in God, you don’t have a glass of wine, you don’t drink, you don’t dance, you don’t smoke, you don’t say cuss words, you don’t want popular movies. It can be easy to simply highlight a list of things that you’re not supposed to do anymore when you choose to follow God. But that leaves out Christian free will.

Believing in God isn’t only about us being emptied of bad things. It’s about us being filled. It’s about becoming so full of God things and God attributes that there’s no room for the other stuff.

Ask yourself, what does religion mean for you? What does Christianity mean to you? If it’s about all the things that you don’t do because you’re a Christian, you might be missing the point.

Here are a couple of Christian freedom verses that can you help set our minds in the right place..

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. The riches of his glorious inheritance and his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe that power is the same as the mighty strength that he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seeded him in his right hand in the heavenly realms.


He’s seated far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God has placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.” – Ephesians 1:18- 22

Go back and read that passage again. It talks about the power of Christ, the power of God, and the fact that as his sons and daughters, we have access to that power. It says God has placed all things under His feet. Everything on earth is under His feet. Everything in the heavenly realms, everything in heaven is under his feet. Every demon and all darkness is under his feet. Every bad thing that we could ever do is already under God’s feet.


God is not holding those things over our head and saying, “Even though I died for you, I’ll still hold this over you until you can prove that you’re good enough.” That’s not the character and the nature of God. He has all power and he has given that power to us to access. What He wants us to do is willingly come to Him and step into the Christian freedom that he offers.

If you’ve been around Christianity or the Bible for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”


But for some reason when we’re teaching new Christians the Bible, we stop there.

Yes, that verse is so important and it gives the gospel message right there. God loves the world so much that He gave His Son to die so we could be forgiven for the bad things we’ve done and have eternal life forever. That’s important. But John 3:17 after it is also an important part of the gospel message.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:17

The benefits of freedom in Christ

God didn’t send Jesus to give us a list of rules to follow or to teach us how to judge people who aren’t living a godly life. God did not send Jesus to the world to condemn people we don’t understand or to rant about the Democratic/Republican party. God didn’t send his Son into the world so we can make people who smoke or drink or go to club feel bad. That’s not the message of the gospel. That’s not why Christ came.

He came to the world not to condemn it, but to save it.

So if you’re going to call yourself a Christian and carry the name of Christ with you, your job is not to condemn. Your job is to love. Your job is to be passionate about sharing hope with other people, about directing people towards the promises of God and the hope you have because of your faith in Him.

We’re called to show love to the world – even the people that we disagree with. Our job is to love them and point them toward Christ. It’s not just about the rules, it’s also about relationship.

This topic reminds me of a song called Naive by Sleeping at Last. The lyrics say, “Religion is a breeding ground where the devil’s work is deeply found.”

As Christians, we have to regularly do a heart check. Because if we become too consumed by rules, and regulations and keeping up appearances, all our efforts can easily turn into the devil’s work. The key to Christian freedom is staying in tune with God and His Word and how He wants us to live and interact with others.

This article hopefully gives you a better idea of what Christian freedom is all about. Because of the love and grace God gave to us, we are free! But that Christian free will should still be used to live a life that honors and glorifies the God who saved us.

Prefer to listen to this blog post? You can hear more on this conversation on Episode 3 of The Joy Rally Podcast right here!

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