Freedom: Delicate and Subtle

"Through Jesus, Paul learned that God was not an impersonal force to be used to make people behave in certain prescribed ways, but a personal Savior who set us free to live a free life. God did not coerce us from without, but set us free from within.
...His letter to the Galatian churches helps them, and us, recover the original freedom. It also gives direction in the nature of God's gift of freedom--most necessary guidance, for freedom is a delicate and subtle gift, easily perverted and often squandered."

-Eugene Peterson, Introduction to Galatians


What a beautiful description of our Christian freedom: "a delicate and subtle gift, easily perverted and often squandered." I so appreciate the balance of the scriptures. I just finished reading Paul's letters to the Corinthian churches. What a rowdy bunch they were! Both Corinthian letters are full of pastoral correction of bad behavior in the church. They were perverting their freedom in Christ and using it as a license to sin.

Next up: Galatians, written to Christian churches who had fallen into the opposite ditch. Instead of perverting the freedom Christ gave them, they allowed it to be taken from them by those who wanted to control them with rules and regulations. Paul's reminder to them: you can't earn grace. God started the good work in you. It's futile for you to try and finish it in your own strength.

So which message is correct? Do we need to straighten up and fly right? Or do we need to relax in God's grace and quit getting ourselves in a tizzy? I would suggest the message that's the hardest to swallow is the one that will do you the most good. If you've been feeling pretty good about how good you are and superiority has crept into your attitude toward other Christians, you need to digest the message of Galatians. If you have a "God and me are pals" attitude and willfully do things that are sinful or hurtful to others, you need to sit down to a hearty meal of Corinthians.

I love God! I love how His living Word heals us, corrects us and changes us into His image.

Going from glory to glory,
Della P