Consequence in Freedom?

By Contributing Writer, Chelsey Hall

Recently, because of some health concerns, I was given a list of foods that I need to cut out of my diet for an extended amount of time. The list is, let’s just say, a bit daunting. Here are a few of the things I am supposed to avoid:

wheat
all dairy
peanuts
several citrus fruits
garlic

And the list doesn’t stop there – these are just a few of the REALLY tough ones!

Honestly, my first inclination is complain and pout and maybe even just toss the list aside and conveniently forget about it. I’m certainly not bound by any law to “have” to eat this way. No one has a gun to my head and is going to pull the trigger if I eat the forbidden foods. In reality, I have the freedom to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. However, I know this isn’t the best thing for my health. I have to put aside my fleshy, selfish desire for the foods I crave so that my body can get clean and healthy. I might have the freedom, but I also have the consequences.

It kind of reminds me of our freedom in Christ. So often we claim “freedom in Christ” to justify certain things. I wonder, however, if we sometimes use our freedom in Christ as a crutch to hang on to things that really only do our Christian walk more harm than good. We might have the freedom, but we also have the consequences.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:15-22