Coming to the heart and mission of Freed to Soar was a long process of many tweaks and much refinement. When I finally landed on it, it felt good and right.
The mission of Freed to Soar is to help people move from bondage to freedom so they may live more fully into the unique purposes God has for their lives.
When this statement emerged, it was like the center piece of a puzzle being put down. All of a sudden, the whole picture was revealed. All the things I was passionate about; all the events that shaped me made sense given that this was the unique person God created me to be.
I am one created to help people find freedom
I am one created to help people see their purpose
I am one created to help others in figuring out how to live the abundant life God created them for
But because I am a skeptic at heart and I never want to risk doing anything outside of God’s will, I needed to search God’s Word to see how this vision lined up with what I saw there. I knew God wanted people to be free, but where was that exactly?
So, I took to the gospels. I figured that if Jesus’ life lined up with this mission, I was probably on the right page. I started in Matthew. I saw Jesus casting out demons. I saw Jesus healing the sick. I moved to Mark. I saw Jesus calling sinners out of their lives of sin. I saw Jesus redefining identities. This was all making me feel pretty good about this vision. But then I got to Luke. And a passage I have heard a million times suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.
If there was ever a moment in the Scriptures where Jesus gave His own personal mission statement it was right here.
In Luke 4, we find Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth, sitting in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. It was just another Saturday “at church” and Jesus was doing what He had probably done every Saturday of His adult life. But this was no ordinary “church service.” At first, everything seemed normal. He got up to take his turn at reading from the Scriptures:
“…and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” (Luke 4:17-19)
There was nothing odd about the moment. It was business as usual. It was what was expected. But all of that was about to change. For with the next breath, after rolling up the scroll, Jesus uttered these words that flipped everything upside down for every single person in that room that day and for every single human being who has walked this earth since:
“…’Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’” (Luke 4:21)
Obviously, this was shocking on many levels. It would have been very clear to every person sitting there that this was a messianic declaration. By asserting that in that moment, in HIM, this Scripture was fulfilled, Jesus was proclaiming that He had the power and the authority to do all of things on the most significant, eternal level of all.
The good news He proclaimed was that He was the One who would crush the head of the serpent and make right what was made wrong in the Garden.
The freedom He was bringing was an ultimate freedom from the power of sin and death.
The sight He would restore would be from spiritual blindness, enabling people to see the world and themselves through God’s eyes.
The oppression He would free people from was a spiritual one inflicted by Satan.
And the year of the Lord’s favor was that moment when access to God, despite people’s sin, was finally granted.
This is all the heart of the gospel—the good news—the way Jesus changed everything for all eternity.
But here’s where things get interesting. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Old Testament passages Jesus could have quoted. So why this one? Why not one referring to the need for the shedding of blood for the redemption of sins? Why not one identifying Himself with the suffering servant?
Having just spent many hours reading through the first two gospels, specifically noting what Jesus did, who He spent time with and who He commended, I was able to see a new layer to this proclamation. Because here’s the thing. Jesus did every single thing listed above on a final, eternal level when He took our sins upon Himself on the cross and accepted the punishment for them. And He proved it in rising from the dead.
BUT, Jesus also did all of these things in very literal ways during the three years of His earthly ministry.
He ACTUALLY proclaimed good news to the poor when He used a parable commending a poor widow who offered everything she had.
He ACTUALLY proclaimed freedom for the prisoners when He cast out demons.
He ACTUALLY proclaimed recovery of sight to the blind when He literally allowed blind people to see.
He ACTUALLY set the oppressed free when He healed people whose illnesses had made their lives sheer misery.
HE ACTUALLY proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor by explaining to His disciples at the last supper how His body and His blood would bring the forgiveness of sins.
God could have easily orchestrated the moment of Jesus’ baptism and then skipped the next three years and gone directly to the cross. But He didn’t. He didn’t, because Jesus’ life wasn’t only about the sacrifice. Jesus’ life was about teaching us what our lives were to look like as His image bearers in the world.
When Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to ask:
“…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
Jesus doesn’t just want us walking this earth, ushering people into a decision that will lead them to heaven. He wants us to walk this earth, as His conduits, bringing heaven to this earth—bringing His kingdom HERE. He wants us to be world changers on this planet and in this life.
So, how does my mission with Freed to Soar fit into God’s vision and His heart for His people? What does it look like for me to let the Image of Christ and the mission of Christ flow through me?
It looks like staying rooted in the centrality of the gospel in everything I say and teach.
It looks like helping people discover the unique things that imprison and oppress them, spiritually, physically, emotionally and relationally.
It looks like opening people’s eyes to be able to see the difference between God’s truth and Satan’s lies.
And then it looks like helping usher people into the year of the Lord’s favor by living out what they were made for from a position of freedom.
So yes, freedom is my unique passion. But I am grateful for the full confirmation that before I was even a cell in my mother’s body, it was God’s passion as well.