Poetry

Intro

Freedom is a word men love to throw around.

Freedom to do what we want. Freedom to answer to no one. Freedom to chase whatever appetite wakes up in the morning.

But the older I get, the more I see the truth of it. Most men who scream about freedom are just dragging chains they refuse to see.

And the worst chains are the ones we polish and call choice.

Not Mastered

Everything is permissible, they say.

The world preaches it like a gospel of convenience.

Do what feels good. Do what feels right. Do what everyone else is doing.

But chains rarely show up looking like chains.

They look like comfort. They look like pleasure. They look like habits you swear you could quit tomorrow.

Sin doesn’t kick the door in. It leans against the frame with a patient smile.

It whispers.

Just this once. Just this time. You deserve it.

And before you realize it, the thing you thought you owned is the thing that owns you.

The bottle.

The anger.

The lust.

The pride that refuses correction.

The quiet little lies we tell ourselves to keep the machine running.

Paul said everything may be permissible. But not everything builds a man.

Not everything strengthens a soul.

Not everything honors the God who hung on wood to break our chains.

And that’s the part the world forgets.

Freedom in Christ was never permission to drown. It was rescue.

It was a key shoved into the lock of a prison door we had long ago accepted as home.

But too many of us step out of that open cell only to walk back in because the chains feel familiar.

So I say it again, to myself as much as anyone:

Everything may be permissible, but I will not be mastered.

Not by anger

Not by appetite

Not by the quiet sins that rot a man from the inside.

Because I belong to the One who let death swing; and then walked out of the grave like it never stood a chance.

And if death itself couldn’t hold Him, Then neither will the chains He died to break.

Reflection

Christian freedom isn’t permission to sin. It’s the power to walk away from it. The world calls restraint weakness. But scripture calls it self-control; one of the fruits of the spirit.

Every believer will struggle, every believer will stumble.

But the Christian life is not about pretending we aren’t tempted. It’s about remembering we are no longer slaves to it.

Christ didn’t just die to forgive sin, He died to break it’s mastery. And because of that the chains we once carried no longer get the final word.