Called to Live in Freedom

God's People Worship
First Things
First Freedom

Beginning of Passover

Galatians 5:13-21

The Message

^13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
^16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

^19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know.

For Reflection

God has set us free!  Free to choose to be selfless or selfish.  Free to choose to love one another or be consumed by hate.  Free to embrace evil as well as good.  

This is God's universe and all that is in it belongs to God.  We are merely stewards of all that is his -- not only the material things, but also, stewards of all of his creation including each other.  Serve God and you will love.  Serve God and you will be just. Serve God and you will be compassionate.  Serve God and you will be hopeful.  Serve God and you will be a shepherd to all of His creation. 

Pray

That you will use the freedom God has given you to become the trusted servant and wise steward of His universe.  Pray that you will live a life consumed by the passion of your faith.  Pray that you will earn the trust and faith that God has in you to become the righteous being you have been designed to be.