The True Path to Freedom
The great promise of modern life is that you can be whatever you want to be. The world is your oyster. Your options are limitless. You can go out and make whatever you want of yourself and your life. The freedom to create your identity pulses through our culture shaping our politics, discipling our young people, and redefining the boundaries of humanity.
But the promise that you are in charge of your life comes with weighty responsibility—you have to make something of yourself. Furthermore, it is only you can do it and if you don’t, your life will be meaningless. 
In this episode of Gospelbound, Collin Hansen hosts Alan Noble to discuss his book You Are Not Your Own: Belonging To God in an Inhuman World. Noble, the managing editor of Christ and Pop Culture and assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, hones in on the cultural shift that has taken us from belonging to communities, families, or even towns, to belonging to ourselves.
Cultural wisdom today tells us that we belong to ourselves, must make decisions that are best for us no matter the cost, and that we are responsible for creating ourselves in the way that is best for us. This basic assumption that has been woven into society over the past few decades, however, comes at a great cost.
Noble turns to the Heidelberg Confession to reorient Christians to the reality that we are not our own but belong to Christ—and this is good news. The pressure to reinvent ourselves, prove ourselves worthy, and create a life of meaning and purpose dissipates when we know that we are not our own creators—we were made with purpose and intention—and the true path to freedom is by submitting to the gentle yoke of Jesus.
Christian Union desires to see not only individual lives changed by the good news that we belong to Christ but our entire nation. More and more, our nation moves towards individualism that imagines each person to be the center of their own universe. Through intensive Bible courses with unersity students to mentoring in major cities and spiritual retreats, Christian Union is working to reorient Americans to the fundamental reality that we were made to know and glorify God.
Listen to the episode here.
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