Ask App Not to Track

In 2021, Apple rolled out a small but revolutionary feature in iOS 14.5 called App Tracking Transparency. Before it existed, hundreds of apps on your phone were silently following you — monitoring which websites you visited, what you purchased, how long you lingered on a photo, where you drove on Tuesday afternoon. Most people had no idea. The surveillance was invisible, woven into the background of daily life.

Then Apple gave users a single prompt: "Ask App Not to Track." One tap, and the invisible chains fell away.

Sin operates much the same way. It tracks us quietly — cataloging our habits, reinforcing our patterns, building a profile of our weaknesses that it uses to serve up the next temptation at precisely the right moment. Most of us don't even realize how thoroughly we're being followed. We think we're free because we can't see the chains.

But the Gospel offers something far more powerful than a privacy setting. When Christ declares us free, He doesn't just ask sin not to track us — He deletes the entire profile. "If the Son sets you free," Jesus promised, "you will be free indeed" (John 8:36). Not partially monitored. Not mostly private. Free indeed.

This Sunday, consider: what has been tracking you so long that you've grown accustomed to it and forgotten it's there? The freedom Christ offers begins the moment you realize you don't have to live under surveillance anymore.