“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13 ESV).
Our liberty in Christ is not license to sin. Receiving His righteousness we have been set free from the external law written on stone tablets and received the Spirit of the law written internally on our hearts. We are not called to legalism but to love. We are not under law, but under grace. Yet, this freedom is not to dabble in sin, but it is freedom to serve God and one another.
Receiving Christ we are freed from slavery to sin and from the condemnation of the law. Why would we waste this freedom to go back to living as slaves? No, we are free now to willingly follow Christ our Redeemer and to love God and others as He directs. Beware of flaunting this freedom with permissiveness or losing it to legalism. You have been set free to follow Christ.
We have been called to the way of liberty in Christ. On either side of the path, there are two ditches. One is called license and the other is called legalism. To stumble into either is to fall back into slavery. Yet staying on the path of liberty, we walk by the Spirit in love.
PRAYER: Dear Father, fill us afresh with Your Spirit this day. For we want to walk by Your Spirit and experience the freedom we have in Christ. Living by Your Spirit, help us not to give into the desires of the flesh, nor the pride of thinking we are above stumbling. Empower us to walk in Your love. In Jesus’ name, amen.