Matthew 7:14 “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Have you caught the Sprint iPhone ad? The tagline proudly declares what is becoming a predominant cry in our culture: I have a right to be unlimited….Wow! Stop a moment and think about where that kind of thinking takes us. Do we really have a right to live without limits? Although the creators of the ad may not have had broader implications in mind, they probably knew they were tapping into a perspective that sells.
Although most people agree that in order for society to function, we need certain restrictions, human nature is quick to dismiss the idea of limits when it comes to morality. (We are told what size sodas we can drink and how many hydrocarbons we may extract for fuel, but woe to those who call any kind of sexual license sin). Limits define right and wrong. You may go so far, but not over that line. So a world without limitations is a world where anything goes. And when anything goes, eventually everything goes. Absent are apps for self-control, restraint, or denial of any pleasure. Limitlessness offers a cheap and unsustainable imitation of freedom.
We don’t have to guess where lifestyles of unlimited freedom take us. The 60’s gospel of “if it feels good, do it,” brought the world unprecedented increases in drug addiction, sexual disease, and family breakdown. The consequences of believing we have the right to anything we want wreaks insatiable appetites…the more we get, the more we want.
We ought to know better.
C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.” He calls this the “Law of Right and Wrong.” He explains that although standards of morality might differ from culture to culture, every single person has been created with an innate sense of boundaries. Ironically, it’s within those boundaries where people find true freedom.
So no matter how appealing those iPhone advertisements may be….buy the product if you want, but don’t buy the message behind it. The Creator God, in his mercy, has given us limits. Limits that save us from inevitable chaos. Limits that enable us to live in real liberty.