Real Freedom

Read: Galatians 5:13-26

You have been called to live in freedom. Galatians 5:13

IN WORD

Paul wrote often of being a bond servant to Christ. He also wrote of his freedom in Christ. So which is it? Is he free or a slave of Christ? The truth is that serving Christ is the only way to freedom because He is the only one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. Unfortunately, throughout Christian history and up through today, the church has often proclaimed a message of freedom while embodying a message of captivity—to rules and formulas, to specific doctrines and decrees, to an idealized spirituality that may look great on a willing volunteer but can crush someone with a different calling. Instead of teaching conformity to Christ—who is anything but a conformist—we’ve far too often taught conformity to a church culture. And that isn’t freedom at all.

Whatever binds you to Christ as His willing bond servant is good. Whatever binds you unwillingly to laws, rules, and regulations may be very religious, but it isn’t the Spirit. It’s wonderful for us to feel compelled by our love for Him; it’s brutal to feel compelled by other people’s expectations. Yet the truth of the Kingdom is that we are free. We live in freedom, are filled with a very free Spirit, and are called to obey out of no other motive than love.

IN DEED

If you don’t feel free in your relationship with God, consider the possibility that others are placing demands on you that He is not. You serve an out-of-the-box Creator who clothed Himself in flesh and lived an out-of-the-box life. Human beings generally insist on social conformity, but God urges spiritual conformity to His Son. There’s a world of difference between the two. One stifles us; the other sets us free. One fears originality; the other makes it possible. One leads to slow and silent death, the other to life in abundance. As you receive the Spirit’s love for you and cultivate your love for Him, you will find Him opening up worlds of possibilities for you—and setting you completely free.

ADDITIONAL READING: 2 Corinthians 3:17

The Spirit of God . . . gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in many of our churches.

D. L. MOODY