In Search Of A Better Tomorrow

Daily Devotional

Time Alone with God daily devotional

Written by Pastor Phil Stout, Lead Pastor, JAXNAZ

Read: Galatians 5:13-14

Galatians 5:13-14

New International Version (NIV)

Life by the Spirit
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b]

Consider: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1). No ambiguity there. The love, acceptance and forgiveness that Christ lavished on us means that we are free. In fact we “were called to be free. But…”

“…do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” (5:13)

Now some people think that Paul’s qualifier—the “but”—somehow limits our freedom. They think that choosing our own morality is true freedom. After all, didn’t Paul just dispense with the law? Didn’t he tell us that we are no longer live “under the supervision of the law” (3:25)?

So what does it mean to be free?

As long as I am the “god” of my own life, as long as I insist on my way and my terms, I live in bondage. I’m protecting the ego—what Paul calls the “old self” (Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9). When I allow the ego to be in charge, I am in chains. But there’s good news!

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…” (Romans 6:6)

Refusing to indulge our sinful nature is not an exception to freedom. It is freedom—a freedom that is given by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Pray: Thank God that we no longer need to be enslaved to sin. Praise him that the chains dropped to the ground when his grace liberated us.