July 25, 2022 WALKING IN FREEDOM
Galatians 3:24-25, 4:6-7, 5:1, 13, 16-18 “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father! Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” ”It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject to a yoke of slavery.” “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” “But I say to you, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets it desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”
To get the point Paul is saying, it is time well spent to read the book of Galatians. Paul was correcting believers who had turned from freedom back to living under the Law. We may think that this does not apply to us-but it does. Living in the freedom that we have as sons and daughters of God is a big deal; in many ways, freedom is fragile and easily lost. The unredeemed nature of man is to live under a certain set of rules that he sets us as his parameters. For centuries the Israelites had lived under the Law; but when Jesus came, He fulfilled the Law and set them, and all who believed in Jesus, free from living under the Law. The point we must get from Galatians is that we are free, but not free to do whatever our flesh wants to do; freedom is not a license to sin. The freedom that God has given us frees us to live in ways that are in keeping with His kingdom. I said that the message of Galatians applies to us because we may believe that because we attend church, we give financially, we ‘don’t drink and curse’, we pay our bills-we are in good standings with God. If we think that way, we are living under law and are in slavery. The freedom that God has given is based on love, not rules. The freedom we have in Christ changes our hearts and our ‘want to.’ The crucial truth we must see is that even though we are saved, our fleshly nature has not been annihilated and it continues to set its desire against the Spirt that lives in us; however, there is good news for us. We have the power to say ‘no’ to the flesh, and we have the power to say ‘yes’ to the Spirit-to walk according to the Spirit. So, we are indeed free; to be free implies we are free to choose; the Galatians were choosing to revert back to living under the Law, back to slavery. The great and glorious truth for us is that we can now live in true freedom-free to be who God made us to be. There is always a voice calling us back to being slaves, but we must stand firm in the freedom that God has given us.
Romans 8:1-2, 6 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the life of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,”
Blessings
Buddy
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