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When many people see Galatians 5:13 unfortunately those who just wish to be carnal view that almost as an excuse for sin, that we are called to freedom. It is so sad because that is not true freedom. True freedom is not having Jesus Christ, my ticket out of hell, and then I still get to live a life of sin. Nobody benefits from that, and I don’t know why Jesus would go to the cross to die for that kind of mentality.
The freedom we have is now the freedom to do things we could never have done in the past. All we could do in the past was sin. Paul says in Romans 6 that we were slaves to sin. But those shackles to sin have been broken and we are now free. And it says in that verse “not free to keep sinning”. Why would Jesus, holy Jesus, take nails in his hands to allow us to continue in our sin. He has set us free from that, he has set us free from our sin.
And what he said in verse 13 is that we are now free to love. The reason that is so special is because that emulates Jesus Christ. You see, people who sin do so because they have an empty love tank in their heart. They need to use other people to meet their needs, that is what the deeds of the flesh really are. You didn’t give me what I want, so I’m going to lash out at you. My wife’s not satisfying me anymore, so I’m going to go out and commit adultery. It’s about me getting what I want. That is the attitude of Satan. That is selfishness. That is pride. That is easy to do.
But God has now given a supernatural power. We are free. And we are free to love each other, we are free to love other people. We are free to do the things that we have always wanted to do better at the highest moral value that imitates Jesus Christ because of this. Because now we are no longer empty or filled with self. Self has been crucified; we have died to self. And that empty void in our heart Jesus Christ has filled it. So, we are filled with everything that God gives us. He fills us up with all his kindness, and his love, and his gentleness, it is all poured into us. And now we are free, not to keep that to ourselves which would be sub-Christian, but rather extend that first back to God and then of course to other people as well, even to our enemies.
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