Free From What, and To Do What?

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

This verse brought immediately to mind the question that is the title of today's devotional.
What are we free from? We are free from The Law. Not the law of the land, or traffic laws, or civil law. None of us have actually ever been under The Law as it is spelled out in the Old Testament. The early church knew The Law and greatly struggled with their new found freedoms in Christ. Some of the Jews who followed Jesus were hanging on to parts of The Law and were trying to get the early church in Corinth to adopt those old practices, and rules into the new faith. Nothing ruins fresh faith faster than legalism. The old Law was constraining, and impossible, and full of undoable expectations. But Christ came to fulfill the Law, not to destroy it.
In the verse it says to stand firm, to make sure you protect your freedom. Interesting that it doesn't say to go crazy to protect your freedom. Even in the church today, we struggle with legalism. People tend to invent The Law so we don't have to work out and exercise our freedom.

We are free though, free indeed. But, free to do what? It may sound weird; but we are free to be Disciples, free to witness, free to serve, and free to forgive, free to love, and free to have healthy boundaries, and free to worship. We are free to be kind, and free to give unselfishly. We are free to express all the fruit of The Spirit and free to do as The Holy Spirit leads. Here is where we go wrong. In today's church, we can start squelching freedom when policy becomes more important than people. We lose our freedom when the church building becomes more important than the Lord's ministry. We aren't really free when being part of God's family isn't very fun, at all. We should enjoy our freedom in Him. Of course, our liberty should never lead to licentiousness and our limitations should never lead to legalism.

Let us stand firm for freedom in Christ, because that is why He set us free. If we really focus on Him first, and His Word, and His Will, we won't need to be too restrictive or be prone to abuse our freedoms, either. There are two things to avoid; being legalistic, which is so burdensome and joyless, or, being licentious, which abuses freedoms and can be so demoralizing too. Hope this helps put the application of our freedom in perspective just a little bit more.

Many Blessings,
Pastor Fred

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