Freedom - part 2

This concept of freedom in Christ is hard to grasp.  It is hard to understand.  It is even harder to live.  As people we love the comfort of checklists.  My wife, early on in our marriage, tried to get me to make lists.  The problem was that I lost my list.  But lists are a great way to organize things.  They help us stay on track.  They also help us see where we aren't being effective or efficient in our lives.  The problem is that we then transfer this to our relationship with God.  If I managed my relationship with my wife and girls by a list, would that be truly considered love.  Or would it lessen my love expressions to just a "To Do" list.

Check out what Paul says about this free life in Galatians 5.16-23:

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.  Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.  These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival,; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.  I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know.  If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way?  He brings gifts into our lives, must the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.  We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.  We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

 Which picture represents your life--the life lived by the flesh or the one controlled by the Spirit?  Our freedom comes not from obedience, but our obedience comes from our freedom.  We are free to live life according to whatever way we want.  Are you living life your way or God's way?