If you were born into slavery, and never heard or experienced freedom, do you think you would even know that you were a slave? When I was young, freedom was not the word that I would’ve associated with church. My parents made us go every Sunday, there were rules that we had to follow, and prayers that we had to recite. If anything, following God was just another task.

Yet Jesus said, “Follow me and take off the yoke of slavery.” What did that mean? I would’ve felt a lot more free if I had those three hours on the weekend to do whatever I wanted rather than sit in church. The problem is that we can feel free without God. We can make our own decisions, and do whatever we like with our time. It seems like freedom, but it’s really not. We’re easily burdened with worries, we have the incredible responsibility of making decisions for ourselves and our families, and we bear the weight of every bad choice we’ve made. We become self-sufficient, but we fall victim to circumstance. There is so much that falls outside of what we can control. Is depending solely on ourselves really the best option?

If you’ve never come to God, you’d most likely answer yes. Chances are, you feel that God’s never done anything for you, so why depend on him? The interesting thing is that God’s done everything for us. He gave us our families, he opened every opportunity for us, he fed us, clothed us, he showed unmeasurable love and patience to us, and on top of all of that – he gave us the freedom to choose whether or not to follow him. So what does it mean that our yolk of slavery will be taken off when we follow God? It means that the burdens that we have put on ourselves to run our own lives gets lifted. It means we leave our struggles to God, and they’re taken care of. Once we’re free of those burdens, it’s an amazing relief. Listen to the sermon of Freedom from following God here.