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By J. Adam Tyler
Guest Columnist

We hear a lot about freedom. It’s an election year, and politicians across the spectrum appeal to our desire for freedom to motivate us to vote – hopefully for them! Television ads use songs and speech about freedom, newspaper editorials trumpet the need to protect our freedoms, and the yard signs that dot our neighborhoods make the case that a vote for this or that candidate means a vote for freedom.

As a student of history, I know that freedom has been foundational to our national narrative. The Revolutionary War was grounded on the ideal of freedom from unjust taxation and other grievances against a far-off ruler. The Civil War was, fundamentally, about slavery – on one side the freedom from national demands to end slavery, and on the other side freedom from slavery itself. The story of 20th century America is wrapped in the desire for freedom: freedom from want and from fear, freedom from fascism and from communism, freedom from limitations real and imagined.

Reflecting on all of this, I realized something: for most of us, most of the time, we think of freedom as freedom from. And freedom from is good – but I think there is another form of freedom that is better. That is freedom for.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks occasionally about freedom. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36) and “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to…set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people” (Luke 4:18-19). But what does the freedom Jesus offers look like – and how is it different than the freedom we think of most of the time?

Paul and other New Testament writers speak of this freedom often. Paul, in Galatians, encourages readers, “do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13). 1 Peter echoes this by saying, “As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil” (1 Peter 2:16). This is not just freedom from something; it is freedom for something better. We often think about Jesus freeing us from sin and death – but we shouldn’t miss that he frees us for other, even better, things. This is what the Bible teaches us.

So in this season where we hear a lot about freedom, let us remember what true freedom looks like: not freedom from, but freedom for. Freedom for doing good. Freedom for blessing others. Freedom for living a better way of life grounded in love. Freedom for the good of ourselves and our world. Freedom for hope for the future and freedom for finding ways to bring that hope into reality today. May we be free – and through that freedom, may we be servants of love.

REV. DR. J. ADAM TYLER is the senior pastor for Farmville Baptist Church, and he can be reached by email at pastor@farmvillebaptist.org.