But when the proper time came,
God sent His Son, born of a woman,
born subject to the regulations of
the Law,
To purchase the freedom of ( to ransom,
redeem, atone for) those who were
subject to the Law, that we might be
adopted and have sonship conferred
upon us ( and be recognized as God’s
children).
And because you really are His sons,
God has sent the Holy Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, crying out, Abba (Father)!
Father!
CALLED TO FREEDOM
For you, brothers and sisters
were called to freedom, only
do not let your freedom be
an incentive to your flesh and
an opportunity or excuse for
selfishness but through love
you should serve one another.
For the whole Law – about human
relationships- is fulfilled in one word,
even in this: ” You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.”
( Galatians 5.13 and 14).
THOUGHTS FOR MEDITATION
Please meditate on these points:
1) Ways to serve one another
2) Direct service to people
3) Freedom to care and love
4) Freedom in Christ to avoid
selfishness and sin
5) Freedom in Christ to be dead
to sin and alive to righteousness.
TRUE FREEDOM
Even so consider yourselves also
dead to sin and your relation to it
broken, but alive to God, living in
unbroken fellowship with Him, in
Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin rule in you
mortal body, that you should obey it
in its lusts.
And do not present your members
as instruments of unrighteousness
to sin, but present yourselves to God
as being alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness
to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you,
for you are not under law but under grace.
What then, shall we sin because we are not
under law but under grace? Certainly not!
Do you not know that to whom you present
yourselves as servants to obey, you are that one’s
servants whom you obey, whether of sin leading
to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?
But thank God that though you were servants of sin,
yet you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching
to which you were delivered.
And having been set free from sin, you have become
servants of righteousness.
( Romans 6.11-18).
Consider the following:
1) The meaning of freedom
2) Thought, purpose and action
patterns that lead to true freedom
Meditate and pray about these.
The Holy Spirit guides God’s children
into all truth and obedience to His will.
TRUE FREEDOM IS DOING THE THINGS
WHICH BRING ETERNAL DIVIDENDS
There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who
do not walk according to the flesh, but
according to the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in that
it was weak through the flesh, God did
by sending His own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh, on account of sin.
He condemned sin in the flesh,
that the righteous requirement of
the law might be fulfilled in us who
do not walk according to the flesh
but according to the Spirit.
For those who live according to the
flesh set their minds on the things
of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit, the things
of the Spirit.
For to be carnally minded is death,
but to be spiritually minded is life
and peace.
( Romans 8.1-6).
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
1) The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ
2) Your answer to the first question determines true freedom
3) The characteristics of true freedom
4 ) Jesus Christ accomplished our reconciliation
5 ) A carnal mind versus the spiritual mind
6 ) The result of being spiritually minded
7) The reason most people don’t experience
more freedom, joy and happiness.