Today's passage comes from Galatians 5: 1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. 13 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. 14 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. 15 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 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. 17 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. 18 Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? 19 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; 20 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; 21 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. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.22 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, 23 not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. 24 Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good - crucified. 25 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.
In this country, this is the week leading to one of our biggest celebrations as a nation; the Fourth of July. It is the celebration of our declaration of independence from Great Britain. For us as believers, Jesus Christ has given us freedom through our relationship with Him. The only form of slavery we should know is of that of service in Jesus Christ to others. Freedom in Christ does not mean freedom to act on our pleasures or desires, but to seek that which glorifies God. The basis of our freedom is found in what Jesus left as the great commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." A life lived in fighting with one another is no life at all; it is a show ground for Satan, not God. Our call is to live guided by the Holy Spirit not our carnal desires. Paul's list in this modern version of life led by the physical is easier to understand: 1) repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; 2) a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; 3) frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; 4) trinket gods; 5) magic show religion; 6) paranoid loneliness; 7) cutthroat competition; 8) all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; 9) a brutal temper; 10) an impotence to love or be loved; 11) divided homes and divided lives; 12) small-minded and lopsided pursuits; 13) the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; 14) uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; 15) ugly parodies of community. Quite a list. Quite a life if you can call it that.
By contrast, the Spirit-filled and Spirit-led life results in these: 1) God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard; 2) things like affection for others, 3) exuberance about life, 4) serenity; 5) a willingness to stick with things; 6) a sense of compassion in the heart; 7) a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people; 8) an involvement in loyal commitments; 9) no longer feel like forcing our way in life; 10) an ability to marshal and direct our energies wisely. That is a sound way to live and it blesses God and others by our choosing to have our path directed by God's Holy Spirit. It is a complete life.
We cannot pick and choose from one list and the other. Our discipleship is a total commitment to the spiritual realm and to God. To choose anything else would be to choose something less.
PRAYER: Lead me, dear God, to a life of complete commitment to You and Yours. May my life be filled and guided by the Holy Spirit. I cannot accept nothing less. I want the fullness of life that comes in being in You and bearing fruit for You. This I need and this I ask for, in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
