We have been traveling today and I just got the opportunity to sit down and put my thoughts together. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Galatians 5.13 “Because I Can!” is a exclamation that we've heard for many years, from parents and children. It was a proclamation toward Bill Clinton, who is considered to be one of our worst presidents of the United States of America, in response to his abuse of office and the liberties our great country possesses. The atrocities he committed were said to be done ‘because he could’. Simply put, he made a choice based purely upon his power as POTUS.
Sin is also a choice. Abusing the liberty the Lord Jesus Christ provided in His death, burial and resurrection is a choice one freely makes. As a born again believer in Christ, we have been given liberty from the bondage and the penalty of sin. Yet, we have not been given relief from the temptation; just the ability to choose not to sin. Sure this life is difficult and daily struggles with sin occur, but we are encouraged each and every day by the fact that we can make an conscious decision to follow the Lord Jesus Christ by loving our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ!
Choosing to serve one another in love disables the facet of sin that so quickly latches to the flesh. Loving one another enables the Holy Spirit to work from within moving outward to touch those that are around us. By enabling the Spirit of the Lord through sacrifice to work together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we find the same corresponding strength in the numbers and ranks of the unified family of God. It was the Lord that spoke to Paul’s heart to pen the words “that there be no schism in the body”. As a body, we are only as strong as our weakest link. Failure to love those of the body of Christ is a failure to serve in the manner Christ sacrificed for us personally!
In like fashion, our love one for another is evidence of the discipleship of Christ. According to John 13:34-35, it is our love toward one another that reveals who and what we are to the world. Outside of the Lord, no one can know our inward thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, saying we love another without actually doing so becomes nothing more than empty and wasted words spoken from mouths of falsehood. Our outward actions reveal the inward intentions. Exercising the love that Christ placed in us at the moment of salvation becomes the evidence of not only what we're under the influence of, but also by whom we are owned. Those in the world today are looking for something real, something of measurable truth. Our attitudes and actions toward and about one another should reflect the very truth that they are searching for.
Lastly, choosing to do the right thing weighs in the balance of a far more eternal measure of glory. By no means am I advocating life style evangelism. However, if our life does not agree with who or what we claim to be, the consequences can, and typically are, eternal in nature. Again, as children of our Lord, we are given the opportunity to choose that which is right by refraining from sin, thus presenting evidence of our discipleship in Christ through our love for Him and for one another. Therefore, when coupled with the plain gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lost soul is more apt to see that our Christianity is something very real and true.
Too many in the church today spend more time seeking faults and searching for failures in those they are related to by the blood of Christ. I understand that we are to mark those that cause division and that we are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, a fact which will forever remain true. I find many people today are spending an excessive amount of time focusing on the faults of those in their camp rather than fighting the real enemy of our souls and families.
A dear friend gave me a book on Father’s Day written by a retired Air Force pilot. At the beginning of one particular chapter, the author opens with, “Lose sight, lose fight. Know who the real enemy is...” Beloved friends, there is an enemy we face in this world today. His name is the Devil and he is walking about day and night seeking whom he may devour. The word "may" is in the context of "is allowed to". We possess within us the greatest power in the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the shield of faith that will quench the fiery darts of the devil and with that protection alone, as long as we obey the commandments of Christ, we are empowered to choose that which is right, present to others the evidence of our love for one another as Christ loved us and, by God’s grace, lay up in store eternal treasures of souls saved for Christ. “...but by love serve one another.”
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