Freedom Is Not a Feeling — It Is a Fact
— By M.T. Clark — P-2024, 07/24/2026 — Today’s Audio Podcast
Today’s Message on YouTube:
Today’s photo of a summer-morning view from my backyard featuring a low tree branch, a chain-link fence, State Route 9J, and the Hudson River comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this serene scene from my place down by the River, in Stuyvesant, NY, on July 18th, 2020.
Well, it’s Friday, thank God, and we’ve come to the end of another work week together. Today’s photo is a view that I never get tired of. The Riverview from anywhere on my property in Stuyvesant brings me great joy because the Lord brought me here at the end of one of the hardest seasons of my life.
I won’t get into all of it here, but getting to my house felt like coming up for air after a long time underwater. It was a hard-won gift straight from God’s provision and, more than anything, it was a place to finally find rest after two years of walking through the darkness of divorce. I share it as a reminder that God doesn’t only bring us through the storm to safety — sometimes He brings us all the way to a place where we can breathe again and rejoice. As you head into the weekend, I pray you find a little of that rest yourself.
Our series, “Freedom Stories,” continues today with the difference between feeling free and being free.
Freedom Is Not a Feeling — It Is a Fact
If we measure our freedom by our feelings, we will believe we have lost it every time our emotions go south, and so Scripture trains us to anchor our freedom in the fact of our new life in Christ and then to instruct our feelings to catch up.
Paul gives us the key verb in Romans 6:11 (NKJV), where he writes: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The word “reckon” is an accounting term. It means to count as true, to calculate on the basis of a settled fact. Paul doesn’t say feel yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God. He says to reckon it, to count on it, and to treat it as the established reality that it is, whether or not we feel dead to sin in the present moment.
This is extremely important for everyday freedom, because feelings are real, but they aren’t reliable reporters of the truth. Our emotions can be influenced by our circumstances, the enemy’s accusations, how much we sleep, and many other things that have nothing to do with our actual standing before God.
If we let our feelings determine our standing in life, our sense of freedom will swing wildly from one day to the next, even though nothing about our position in Christ has changed at all.
Paul’s remedy is not to chase a better feeling but to keep reckoning on the fact of what Christ has done for us. We are to keep counting as true what God has declared to be true, so that our feelings eventually follow the fact of our freedom rather than the other way around.
This is exactly why the helmet of salvation matters so much in our daily fight, and why we say throughout this series that the verdict over the believer was settled at the cross.
Our death to sin and our life to God aren’t spiritual achievements we have to manufacture or maintain by sheer willpower. They are settled facts—accomplished by Christ on the cross and given to us as a permanent reality. Our job isn’t to constantly renegotiate our standing based on how we feel when our feet hit the floor; our job is simply to agree with what God has already declared to be true.
There have been plenty of mornings in my walk when I didn’t feel forgiven, didn’t feel new, or didn’t feel free. Early on, I used to let those feelings have the final word. I would drag myself through the day as if my standing with God depended on my daily mood. But thankfully, the Lord revealed the truth of my identity and my freedom in my Christ.
The truth I had to learn the hard way was this: on the days we feel most free, we are no freer than on the days we feel completely stuck. Why? Because our freedom never depends on our feelings in the first place. Our freedom depends entirely on what God has reckoned to be true about us in Christ.
So, when the feeling of freedom vanishes, don’t believe the lie that your freedom is gone. Preach the truth back to yourself. Reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Stand firm on the authority of God’s Word, not the shaky testimony of your emotions. Stand right there, reminding yourself of the truth until your feelings come around. They usually will in time, but even when they’re slow to respond, the rock-solid truth doesn’t change. You are free indeed, whether your emotions agree with it today or not.
Keep on walking and talking with God.
— M.T.
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
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