Read or listen to today's devotion at http://odb.org
Bible reading: Galatians 5:1-14
God's laws are for our protection and happiness. Break them and disaster ensues, just as breaking the rules of the road with have dire consequences. However as Galatians 5:14 says, For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
In the Church at Galatia, there were those that said that new Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians should be circumcised ... a practice that reverted back to the old covenant between God and the Jews. Paul warns that there is danger of "falling from grace" by teaching that new converts must keep the old Hebrew law. In Christ, we are free from the power of law and death. When we try to set up more "rules" to follow, we are just as bad off as we were when we were sin's captive.
Paul also writes in this passage that we have been "called to liberty" in Christ. We have been set free from both the bondage of the old law and the bondage of sin. But Christ's liberty should not result in our returning to a life of sin ... and becoming slaves again. Our lives are to be lived in a perfect balance between sin and law. We have such liberty that the only "law" we need obey is to love others. When we do that, we will naturally follow all that the Ten Commandments required.
We are free to live by the rule of love. Join Christ in a perfectly balanced life: a life filled with liberty, love, joy and peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment