HOW WE LIVE: Free to Serve

“But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Galatians 5:13

Paul passionately pleads with the Gentile believers in Galatia: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to [the] yoke of slavery, [that is, to the Law of Moses]” (Galatians 5:1).

Freedom is what Christ freed us for.

The Bible, however, does not define freedom as living without restrictions. Instead, biblical freedom is understood as being released from the grasping power of sin, the slave-master intent on driving us only to our deaths (Romans 6:15-23).

The Law was just another kind of slave master. Although a good-intentioned one, it was ultimately powerless to free humanity from sin’s bondage. This freedom would come simply through trust in the promise of God. By faith in Jesus. It is, for this reason, Paul didn’t want the Galatians to look to the Law for assurance that they were right with God. That was just another form of slavery. And Jesus had already set them free from it all!

From this place of freedom from sin, of divine acceptance apart from works, God invites his people to humbly serve one another in love. To use our freedom for the benefit of others.

Have you ever felt the freedom of serving another person in love? Have you ever felt the joy that comes with that freedom?

When you are no longer under the control of both sin and the Law, it becomes a joy to find ways to love others sacrificially. To lay down your life for them as a pale reflection of the Life that was laid down for you and for your freedom.