Free to Love

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

FREE TO LOVE

Gal 5:1-6

5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

NIV

The Lord keeps driving the point home through these words of Paul. It cannot be both law and freedom. It has to be one or the other. The law burdens people with what they cannot hope to fulfill. The law puts people in the yoke of slavery. This is no different for us. If we think we have to live under the burden of some form of law then Christ has no value to us at all. When we make up rules we think are scripturally based, then we have created our own law which takes away our freedom and puts us back in the yoke of slavery. This whole list thing, the list we have made up of things Christians do not do, is nothing but a yoke of bondage. Certainly we cannot think by not doing certain things it gives us any form of righteousness. Of course, this does not mean we are free to commit any and every sin we can think of, that would be absurd. But what law is Paul talking about in that we are free from? It always seems the Old Testament law is at the core of what we have been set free from. But what is that law? It has to include everything in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Do we pay any attention to any of them? It would seem we certainly attempt to by reciting the Ten Commandments as principles to live by. If we say we abide by one of them then we are also saying that we are subject to all of the law and if we break just one of them we are guilty of all of the law. It does sound confusing as the Ten Commandments are good. Yet if we were to break any of the other commands of God we would be guilty of breaking the Ten Commandments, because they too are part of the Torah. What hope do we have of being justified by abiding by any rules or regulations, or lists we can check off that we do not do and those we do? It is hopeless. Our only hope is Jesus. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. There it is, faith expressing itself through love. Jesus has told us the two greatest commands.

Mark 12:28-31

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.   30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'   31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." 

NIV

Matt 22:34-40

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'   38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'   40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." 

NIV

Jesus has to be referring to all the law of the Torah, including the Ten Commandments. He is saying these two are the greatest, there is no other law that supersedes these two. Mark does not record what Matthew includes in that Jesus made sure we understand all the law and the words of the Prophets hang in these two commandments. Again there is nothing in the Old Testament that is greater or supersedes these two. We usually do not have much if a problem loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Well at least, for the most part, we fall short of that at times. But the hardest part of these commands is loving our neighbor as ourselves. Who would do harm to themselves? Who would inflict any kind of pain on themselves? And yet we inflict pain on others, especially when we gossip about them, or spread rumors about someone. We inflict pain upon others when we judge them, or attempt to make them feel guilty about doing something we think is wrong, even if there is no scriptural basis for our thinking. We inflict pain on others in so many different ways, and yet we think we are such “Good Christians”. How can that be? If we love them as ourselves then we would do them absolutely no harm whatsoever. This is the only law we need to consider, that which Jesus told us. That is we are free to love.