FREE—BUT STILL HIS
Liberty, Clean Hands & an Undistracted Life - June 12, 2026
Something happens when you finally understand that freedom in Christ does not mean living without restraint.
It means living without the wrong restraints.
Free from fear of people.
Free from the need for constant approval.
Free from comparison.
Free from religious control.
Free from old identities.
Free from bitterness.
Free from bondage.
Free from the exhausting responsibility of trying to manage everybody else’s opinion of you.
But never free from Jesus.
I am free—
and completely His.
Stir Up the Gift
This livestream began with something God used to encourage me from a church service in South Africa:
Stir up the gift.
Sometimes we don’t need a new gift.
We don’t need another assignment.
We don’t need another prophetic word.
We need to stir up what God already put inside us.
There are things God has already spoken.
Gifts He’s already given.
Instructions He’s already made clear.
And sometimes discouragement, distraction, disappointment or simply the passing of time causes us to stop tending what He gave us.
So stir it up.
Pray again.
Write again.
Sing again.
Teach again.
Create again.
Serve again.
Open your mouth again.
You don’t necessarily need something new.
Maybe God is breathing on what was already there.
Where the Spirit of the Lord Is, There Is Liberty
Second Corinthians 3:17 says:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Liberty.
I love that word.
Because following Jesus is not supposed to make us slaves to human beings.
We can honor leaders without worshiping them.
We can receive teaching without surrendering our discernment.
We can belong to a church without making a human leader our mediator.
We can appreciate the person God used without confusing the vessel with the Source.
Paul addressed this kind of misplaced allegiance in 1 Corinthians 3.
Don’t boast in people.
All things are yours.
Our ultimate allegiance belongs to Jesus Christ.
☝🏽
You Don’t Need Permission to Belong to Jesus
There is tremendous freedom in realizing:
I belong to Jesus.
People don’t get to vote on that.
Someone else’s misunderstanding doesn’t cancel your calling.
Someone else’s rejection doesn’t change your identity.
Someone else’s opinion doesn’t rewrite what God said.
And someone else’s obsession with what you’re doing doesn’t require your participation.
Sometimes the most spiritually mature response to distraction is:
Keep walking.
You don’t have to investigate every conversation about you.
You don’t have to respond to every criticism.
You don’t have to correct every misunderstanding.
You don’t have to know who doesn’t like you.
You don’t have to monitor who is monitoring you.
Goodness.
That’s a full-time job nobody hired you for. 🤣
Stay with Jesus.
Stay with your assignment.
Mind Your Kingdom Business
Because sometimes freedom looks like minding yours.
What did God tell you to do?
Where did He tell you to go?
What did He put in your hands?
Who did He tell you to serve?
We can waste tremendous amounts of energy studying somebody else’s journey while neglecting our own.
Comparison is distracting enough.
But sometimes even excessive curiosity about other people’s lives can pull us away from our own stewardship.
You don’t need to understand everybody else’s assignment.
Be faithful with yours.
Freedom Requires a Clean Heart
But here’s where liberty becomes more challenging.
We want freedom from what they did.
God also wants freedom from what what they did produced inside us.
Bitterness.
Resentment.
Anger.
Revenge.
Unforgiveness.
That’s why forgiveness kept appearing during this livestream.
Matthew 6:14–15 gives forgiveness tremendous spiritual importance.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending the offense wasn’t real.
It doesn’t mean restoring access to someone who is unsafe.
It doesn’t mean abandoning boundaries.
It doesn’t mean calling wrong right.
It means:
I refuse to remain internally chained to what you did to me.
That’s freedom.
Clean Hands
Then here comes Job 22:30.
It gives us this striking picture of intercession and clean hands.
And that makes me ask:
What if the purity of the vessel matters because God wants to use the vessel for somebody else’s freedom?
Suddenly forgiveness isn’t merely about feeling better.
It’s stewardship.
Lord, keep my hands clean.
Keep bitterness out of my prayers.
Keep revenge out of my intercession.
Keep pride out of my authority.
Keep selfish ambition out of my ministry.
Keep me from secretly hoping somebody fails while publicly praying for them.
Ouch.
But—
clean hands.
Pray for the People You Don’t Understand
Then Acts 19 brings us back to people involved in sorcery and magic.
And again, my heart is not simply:
“Lord, stop them.”
It’s:
“Lord, save them.”
Because Acts 19 shows people making a radical break with their former practices after encountering the truth.
Their curiosity became reverence.
Their practices changed.
Their allegiance changed.
Their possessions changed.
Their lives changed.
They didn’t merely add Jesus to everything else they were doing.
They made a clean break.
That’s conversion.
What If Curiosity Becomes Reverence?
I love that possibility.
Someone may initially encounter the Gospel because they’re curious.
Maybe they came to criticize.
Maybe they came to investigate.
Maybe they came because someone sent them a livestream.
Maybe they don’t even know why they clicked.
That’s just fine.
Come on in.
Because curiosity can become conviction.
Conviction can become repentance.
Repentance can become surrender.
And surrender can become an entirely new life.
Second Corinthians 5:17 says:
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ… he is a new creature altogether…”
New.
That’s what we’re praying for.
Not merely behavioral modification.
Transformation.
Saul Still Becomes Paul
That’s why I refuse to look at someone in darkness and decide their story is finished.
We’ve talked about this repeatedly.
Saul was hostile toward Christians.
Jesus interrupted him.
And everything changed.
So why wouldn’t we pray for people who appear completely opposed to God?
Why wouldn’t we pray for witches?
Warlocks?
Mediums?
People practicing other forms of occult spirituality?
We’re not praying because we approve of practices Scripture warns against.
We’re praying because Jesus saves people.
And if He saved us, we have no grounds for deciding somebody else is too far away.
Remember the Least of These
Matthew 25:40 brings this message somewhere even deeper.
Jesus said that what was done for “one of the least of these” was done for Him.
That means our spirituality cannot only be measured by what happens while we’re praying.
How do we treat people?
Especially people who cannot advance us?
People who don’t have influence?
People who cannot repay us?
People everybody else ignores?
People whose lives are messy?
People who make us uncomfortable?
Kingdom authority without Kingdom love is missing something essential.
If our spiritual experiences aren’t making us more capable of loving people, we should examine what they’re producing.
Crucified With Christ
Galatians 2:20 says:
“I have been crucified with Christ…”
Now we get to the beautiful paradox of Christian liberty.
I am free.
And yet—
my life belongs to Christ.
The world might define freedom as:
“Nobody tells me what to do.”
The Gospel gives us something better:
“Sin doesn’t own me anymore. Jesus does.”
I am no longer enslaved to my old nature.
I am no longer required to obey every impulse.
I don’t have to follow culture wherever it goes.
I don’t have to become whatever people expect.
I have been liberated to become who God created me to be.
Free—but still His.
Reverence Still Matters
Psalm 119 speaks about trembling in reverence before God’s judgments.
And I think we need this balance.
Liberty does not mean casual disregard for holiness.
Freedom doesn’t eliminate reverence.
Relationship doesn’t eliminate awe.
Jesus is our Savior.
Jesus calls us friends.
We have been adopted into God’s family.
And yet—
He is still King.
Familiarity with God should never produce contempt for His holiness.
Freedom should make us want to draw closer, not wander farther away.
The Great Commission Is What Freedom Is For
Then Mark 16 brings us right back to the assignment:
Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.
Freedom has purpose.
God didn’t free us so we could spend the rest of our lives staring at the chains lying on the floor.
They’re off.
Let’s go.
There are people to love.
People to serve.
People to pray for.
People who need the Gospel.
People who need to know that the same Jesus who brought us out can bring them out too.
That’s why we don’t have time to stay consumed with who is watching us.
Who criticized us.
Who misunderstood us.
Who copied us.
Who rejected us.
Who didn’t support us.
Who talked about us.
Let them talk.
We’ve got Kingdom business.
Free—But Still His
So stir up the gift.
Forgive.
Keep your hands clean.
Release people from the debt you keep wishing they would pay.
Stop monitoring other people’s lives.
Stop allowing human approval to become your master.
Pray for people trapped in darkness.
Believe that Jesus can transform anybody.
Treat people with dignity.
Walk in liberty.
And then use that liberty for the purpose God gave it to you.
Because freedom in Christ isn’t:
“Now I can do whatever I want.”
It’s:
“Finally, I am free to become completely His.”
No chains.
No fear of man.
No religious bondage.
No bitterness.
No obsession with everybody else’s journey.
No Plan B.
Just Jesus.
FREE—BUT STILL HIS.
And I wouldn’t trade that freedom for anything.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for the liberty we have through Jesus Christ. Stir up every gift You have placed within us and awaken anything discouragement or distraction has caused us to neglect. Free us from fear of people, comparison, bitterness, unforgiveness and unhealthy attachment to human approval. Give us clean hands and pure hearts so that we can intercede for others without pride or revenge. Teach us to pray for those who are far from You, believing that curiosity can become reverence and darkness can give way to new life in Christ. Keep us tender toward people, reverent toward You and faithful to our own assignment. We are free, Lord—and we willingly belong completely to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Charnette Kay ⚔️
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