Memorize: Attitudes from Spirit’s leading
Key Verses: 1, 4, 6, 13, 17, 19, 22, 25
In Christ we are free, free from the obligation to keep the Law as a means to a right relationship to God. It makes no sense to try to keep the requirements of the Law, either ceremonial or legal, to become its slave. Jesus met the requirements on our behalf. We now live by faith. And that faith gets expressed in our lives through love. If we try to gain it by keeping the Law, we become Law’s slave again. And that slavery gets in the way of our growth.
Some of these false teachers were saying that Paul himself said that they needed to keep the Law in order to be a Jesus-follower. Paul emphatically denies this. In fact, he says that because the Cross eliminates the requirements of the Law, he should not be persecuted, since he himself is not practicing the freedom he is preaching. What was offensive about the Cross was that it gave freedom to those who had never kept the Law’s requirements. It opened the floodgate to any and all who would believe.
The freedom we now have does not give us license to sin. Freedom from keeping the requirements of the Law does not equal freedom to sin. We are now free to obey God’s greater command: love. We are not given freedom in Jesus to do what we want, satisfying all the desires we have in any way we want. Instead, we are told to love one another and follow the Spirit.
I love the contrast between acts and fruit. Acts are things we do; fruit is the outcome of being connected. When we are Jesus-followers, the Spirit flows through us and produces fruit. These are not things we choose to do as a way to earn God’s favor. We have God’s favor because of Jesus work. These are not acts of the Spirit, but fruit. You can’t make fruit by yourself anymore than an apple tree can make apples without the soil, water, nutrients and sunlight. When we are connected to the Spirit and being led by Him, then fruit is the result. As Jesus-followers we choose to not engage in the acts of the flesh, but to allow the Spirit to work in and through us.
We are to keep in step with the Spirit. Just as a soldier marching in formation must stay in step with the leader’s cadence call, so we must keep in step with the Spirit’s leading. His voice in the one voice we need to hear and obey.
The Arnold Journey 