"Live as free people; do not, however, use your freedom to cover up any evil, but live as God's slaves." (1Pet 2:16).

From the verse above the Holy Spirit is saying you are free but yet you are slaves. Slaves are not free people, they are under the captivity of their Lord but yet the Spirit say we are free. Here find the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery - for He had hidden true liberty in captivity.
"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2Cor 3:17).
Those words seems to contradict each other - Lord and liberty. During those days a Lord is one that owns slave, he enslaves people but yet the Bible is saying the Lord who enslaves is liberty. This is a very important truth that we must recognize because many Christians have over emphasize the word freedom and have forgotten that we are also slaves. It's true that only in the arms of the Lord do we find true liberty, yes freedom only exist in the captivity of the Lord. Now the question is how is this possible, how did God manage to hidden liberty in captivity?

Now liberty is having the right to freely express yourself, it is a state of being free. When Jesus set us free from the clutches of Satan he gave us freedom under his enslavement. This was possible because he possessed us and became our life, therefore our life is our Lord. Liberty is freely expressing the life within you, we freely live our life and express our life. Therefore when we become a slave to our life we are indeed free. When a person can not freely express the life in him then such a person had been enslaved and this is what happened to us when we are in sin. We find that there are things we want to do but we can't do it, we can't freely express ourselves. In fact the Spirit explains this through Paul when he said:
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice." (Rom 7:18-19).

You desire and you will to do something but you can't and you find that you can only do what Sin detect for you. Your life cannot freely express itself through your body. This is the enslavement we suffered while we were sinners, the devil enslaves our life because our life is too weak to resist him. No man have been able to resist sin, "for all have sinned" (Rom 3:23). This is because the human life is too weak to resist sin, it always fall into the slavery of sin. Even if God set us free we would fall back into the slavery of sin because our life is too weak, it easily falls into the captivity of sin. Something has to be done about this, God has to give us a better life, an overcoming life that would not become captive to sin, this life is Jesus Christ himself.

Therefore our weak and helpless life has to die and be replaced with Christ. The flesh is still weak and easily fall captive to sin, so in order to maintain freedom this new Life in us has to overpower the flesh and enslave it in order to freely express itself through it. Our new Life can freely express itself through our body because it has enslave the body, and that is true freedom. When the life in us cannot freely express itself through our body then we are enslaved but when our life freely expresses itself through our body that is liberty.

The the Life in us is able to take hold of us and expresses itself the more we enjoy freedom. Therefore for us to enjoy freedom we must become captive of this Life. The deeper we go into the captivity of our Life the more we enjoy liberty. Therefore for us to enjoy the fullness of this freedom in Christ we need to all ourselves fall deeper into the captivity of the Life of Christ in us.