Dangerous Freedom

Do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. - Galatians 5:13


Freedom in dangerous in the hands of those who don't know how to use it. That's why criminals are confined in prisons with barbed wire, steel bars, and concrete barriers. Or consider a campfire that is allowed to spread in a dry forest. It quickly becomes a blazing inferno. Unchecked freedom can create chaos.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Christian life. Believers are free from the law's curse, its penalty, and its guilty-producing power. Fear, anxiety, and guilty are replaced by peace, forgiveness, and liberty.

Who could be more free than one who is free in the depths of his soul? But here is where we often fail. We use freedom's luxury to live selfishly, or we claim ownership of what God has merely entrusted to us. We slip into patterns of self-indulgent living, especially in affluent societies.

The proper use of freedom is "faith working through love" to serve one another (Gal. 5:6, 13). When we rely on the Spirit and expand our energies on loving God and helping others, the destructive works of the flesh will be restrained by God (w. 16-21). So let's always use our liberty to build up, not to tear down.

Like a raging fire, freedom without limits is dangerous. But when controlled, it is a blessing to all. - Dennis J. De Haan


Christ came to give us liberty
By dying in our place;
Now with new freedom we are bound
To share His love and grace. - D. De Haan

Freedom doesn't give us the right to do what we please, but to do what pleases God.

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Galatians 5:1-6, 16-21

Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteouness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies.

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Thank God to giving me freedom... please show me the right way to use it... and I wish to know whats Your will... it is hard to really live like Christ... but I am trying hard, doing my best for it... Everyone have their own cross to take up and walk all the way to heaven... I am not alone... but may I have someone to walk beside me? ... yes, everyone is moving together, but no one walk with me, accompany me... they all just walk in their own path... I didn't mean to get help from anyone... but I really wish to have someone, who free to listen and talk with me... Although we are full when we have Christ... but thats spiritual one... what about my physical?? it is not so important, but no way to totally despite it...