Galatians 5:13
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.
Dear God, when I was younger, my friends and I used to reference this verse and say that someone who said they were Christians but living worldly lives were “living in their grace.” Of course, we were saying it sarcastically. How could they just blatantly do that? Of course, as I aged you revealed to me how much I do that in my own life. I am certainly not pure, and I still have sinful parts of me that I’ve either not realized need purging or have intentionally allowed to stick around.
So what IS the freedom Paul references here? Well, in the verse leading up to this, Paul is referencing circumcision and how it’s no longer important because of what Jesus’s death and resurrection did for us. So Jesus and what he did bring us freedom from the legalistic laws and ushers us into a realm where we have some flexibility to show love and grace. For the person who is not yet free because they haven’t experienced the grace Jesus offers, it can be hard, if not impossible, to offer that freedom to others.
Father, if I’m allowing anything sinful in my life right now that is holding me back, or, better said, holding you back from living more fully through me, please show it to me and help me to purge it. And help me to take the freedom Jesus gives me and use it to offer others freedom. Help me know how to be an encouragement to others. Right now, I have a young man on my heart who is in juvenile detention and just going through hell. I don’t know that I have anything to offer him, but I know he’s on my heart. Show me what to do for him and how to offer him Jesus’s freedom.
I pray all of this in Jesus’s name,
Amen
Emails to God 