Hello dear friends. It’s a new week and it is a privilege writing a new edition of Vignettes of Grace. I hope you maximized the opportunities that came your way last week to be a positive influence like we saw in my last post.
We are at Galatians 5:13 this week:
“My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.” Galatians 5:13 Contemporary English Version
Much of the previous verses in Paul’s epistle to the Galatians had been addressing the issue of our liberty in Christ and its implication on human attempts at justification. The recurrent message all along has been that there is no other way to enjoy the best of God except the way of grace. Also the reality of grace renders all our attempts to make ourselves acceptable to God a mere “chasing after the wind”.
From our verse in focus however, Paul shifts the discussion and begins to address the issue of our liberty in Christ and its implication on our lifestyle-our habits, our actions. In succeeding verses, he would go on to discuss a number of important matters that have to do with an outworking of the inner man but verse 13 opens the door into that discussion.
It is a simple fact that all the wonderful things God has freely bestowed on us have a practical relevance to our lives here on earth. Indeed we are called to liberty but not to indulgence and reckless living. Galatians 5:13 is a verse that reminds of the awesome responsibility we have as believers in Christ Jesus. We are free from servitude to sin, free from slavery to religious rites and customs but we are now bound to God.
This is much like what God says to us through that wonderful chapter in Romans on our freedom from sin and slavery to righteousness (Romans 6). We are freed from the law but that doesn’t give us a license to sin. Some people have misunderstood the grace of God and wrongly concluded that God’s grace gives us the avenue to go on sinning.
We are free, yes! Free from sin, free from the law but not free from love. We have been made free to serve one another in love. This is the true liberty of sonship in Christ. Remember we learnt in verse 6 of Galatians 5 that faith expressing itself through love is what really counts.
God’s grace has brought us liberty and His grace also dictates a certain type of lifestyle-a life that is not governed any longer by a powerless servitude to the law or slavery to sin but one with a powerful exhibition of selfless love. Think on this people. This is our calling. This is the life God planned for us to live.
My song for the week is “I Am Not The Same” by Aaron Keyes. Remind yourself of the realities in this song over and over not only this week but as often as possible.
Join me again next week as we look at more snapshots of God’s amazing grace. Have a lovely day and a great week.
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