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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Galatians 5:1-15
Man has always considered liberty as the most precious of all that is good. But where can he truly enjoy it? He is born and dies with chains riveted to his heart, poor slave of his passions that he is. Only the Lord Jesus can free him (v. 1; John 8:36). Another question then arises: what use is the one who has been redeemed by the Lord Jesus to make of his liberty? Will he put himself deliberately back under the hard yoke of the law (v. 1)? Such an attitude is as absurd as if a freed criminal wanted to return to his prison cell! Is he then to use it "as an occasion to the flesh" (v. 13)? This step would be the opposite to that of the Thessalonians; it would be going back from serving God to the tyranny of the worldly idols (Galatians 4:8-9; Luke 11:26; 1 Thessalonians 1:9). No, this liberty, so dearly purchased by the Saviour on the cross, is a liberty the Christian should use for the benefit of service to others. Finally, it is in this way he will fulfil the law, since this is summed up in a single word: love, "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8-9). Moreover, he fulfils the commandment of the Lord Jesus, whose last and dearest wish was that we should love one another as He loved us (John 13:34; John 15:12; John 15:17).
