Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – I, we, must stop telling people how to live and start helping them to live in the intimacy of love.
Galatians 5:1,3-4, 6 NLT
[1] So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. [3] I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favour with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. [4] For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. 6] For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.
Observation
Freedom for love’s sake. You can’t live by love and law. Law is manipulative, demanding and judgemental by its very nature. Love only stands on the foundation of freedom. If the focus is that I live by love then the law books must be burned and the dangerous, beautiful, inspiration of freedom must be released. And not slightly free for that produces small love, it must be total freedom. If the law is given any breath then the monster it is will rise to take primacy, for the power of the law seduces leaders, and the fragile security of law attracts followers. The history of the church evidences this with clarity.
If you want law then you must go all the way. You can’t say I will obey the speed limit but not red light cameras. If you want law then it’s all the law of Moses. But you must see that you are now cut off from Christ’s freedom and grace. You can’t have them both. One kills the others. The church’s inability to move into complete freedom from the law has seen the magnificence of God’s grace watered down and unrecognisable to most in our culture.
“Christ has truly set us free,” we are so afraid of this statement that we head back to the law to try and get me to behave. Even though I can show you how little I behave under the law. The law says “don’t.” All that arouses in me is “do.” But now it’s not “do” in transparent intimacy, it’s “do” in hiding. I don’t do it transparently in my relationship with God, so He has no voice to discuss it with me. When you remove law the things I desire are no longer tabooed by “don’t”, so I can explore in the intimacy of relationship my attraction to that “doing.” It’s only in the intimacy of exploration can I make wise decisions. This does not mean I will always choose right, but even when I choose wrongly I remain in the intimacy of relationship with God with my choice not hidden. God in his gift of freedom is now invited to interact in my “doings,”, I remain in His love and I in His freedom can maintain intimacy while I journey through these “doings” in my life. It’s only in the power of love and intimacy, and not in the hiddenness produced by the law, can I find ultimate freedom and healing. When will we see that God is not into correctness He is into connectedness. It is only in His presence can the fullness of the life of salvation be explored. When I can do whatever I like and remain in His love, then love has a voice to shape my likings. This is the way of freedom, so that love can shape my life.
Application
Kill all small murmurs of law in my life, never use law on others. Live free, live loved.
Response
Thank you that you shaped and share life only from a context of freedom. I love the intimacy that is afforded when the condemning and shaming of the law are silenced. Thank you that I can bring all of me into the intimacy of us. This is the most beautiful way to live.
Meditation
Meditation truth – Christ has truly set you free.
Consider:
How often do you live under, and enforce, the law on yourself and others?
Do you trust love to shape your life?
JOURNEY DEEPER