John 8:32
"Then you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free." (ESV)
Freedom is the ability to respond to God fully out of who He made you and redeemed you to be. Freedom does not mean that you will stop getting angry, or lying, or overeating, etc. The pharisees stopped doing all of that, and yet they were still in more bondage than most people during New Testament times. When we believe that freedom is when we stop doing all of the bad stuff that seems to own us right now, then all of our energy, strength, and vitality will be spent trying to "manage our sin." Jesus didn't come and die so that you would behave better. He didn't suffer on the cross and raise to life again in order to put us on a sin management program.
Freedom is an act of God, not an act of man. It wasn't until the woman with the issue of blood finally stopped trying to heal herself and allowed Jesus to act on her behalf that she was truly healed. She had managed it for years, but she was not "set free" from the affliction until she "knew the Truth." When we make God and seeing His glory displayed on the earth ultimate in our lives, sin and it's power begins to diminish.
Freedom is not when I stop doing something, it's when I become someone. That's what Paul meant when he said, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." Paul's energy and strength was not spent on trying to be perfect but living out who God had made and redeemed him to be. And in doing so, he found out that he did not have to be a slave to sin any longer but he could truly be set free.
