After leaving a rule-based system, a lot of people end up wrestling with the same question: Have I gone too far… or not far enough? Freedom can feel pretty scary when you’ve only ever known fences. For a lot of my life, I thought “freedom” meant danger… like if you stopped following every rule, you’d just drift off course, but when I started to actually experience what the Bible calls freedom in Christ, it surprised me. It didn’t feel wild or rebellious at all…it felt peaceful. It felt like exhaling after holding your breath for years.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). That’s such a simple verse, but it hit me one day…freedom isn’t an accident or a side effect, but it is the point.
Still, the early days were rough. I couldn’t shake the guilt even when I wasn’t breaking any moral boundaries, I’d feel this weight that I was doing something wrong. Canceling a month of meetings in our home when my family was gone but I could have still hosted them, doing bible studies with non-meeting people, praying aloud with others, reading a devotional instead of attending a prescribed gathering. That little voice in my head kept whispering, “you’re slipping”. It took a while to recognize that voice wasn’t God. It was just old wiring…a leftover echo from a system built on fear.
Romans 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That means God isn’t waiting for me to mess up…that He’s not grading my performance, but actually, He’s walking beside me and honestly, that changes everything. I used to think freedom meant “no rules.” Now I realize it’s more like learning to walk without someone holding your hand, still careful, but confident that you won’t fall every time you take a step.
Freedom doesn’t have to mean chaos. It just means the guardrails are love and grace now, not fear and guilt. Instead of obeying to earn God’s favor, I’m learning to respond because I already have it. That shift, from fear to love, is where real transformation happens.
As 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” That is not a warning…it’s a promise.
During a study with a group of men this past year, we went through Max Lucado’s book The Heart of Jesus. There’s a line of thought in there that’s really stuck with me: when you start to understand Jesus’ heart…His gentleness, His grace, His steady love…the drive to prove yourself begins to fade. Lucado talks about how freedom isn’t about escaping rules; it’s about realizing the One who loves you already did the work. That’s when obedience stops being fear-driven and starts coming from gratitude. That shift is slow, but it’s real…and when you feel it, you know.
Even now, guilt tries to sneak back in sometimes. I’ll catch myself worrying that maybe I’ve gotten too comfortable, or that God must be disappointed, or that I’m messing up “the thing I had”, but then I remember: Jesus didn’t set me free just so I could build a new kind of prison out of shame and “shoulds.” He set me free so I could walk with Him, honestly, imperfectly, but free.
Freedom in Christ isn’t doing whatever I want, but it’s finally being able to love and obey from the heart, not from fear — and that’s a kind of freedom worth holding on to.
By Mike Groseth
October 20, 2025