The Life of Freedom

Galatians 5 (The Message)

The Life of Freedom

 ¹ Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.  ^2-3I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. ^4-6I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
 ^7-10You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn't come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don't toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.
 ^11-12As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn't matter one way or the other. Why don't these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
 ^13-15It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
 ^16-18My 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?
 ^19-21It 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 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.
 ^22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much 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.
 ^23-24Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
 ^25-26Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

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Shekinah Glory

The term "Shekinah Glory" is one that I haven't thought about in 20 or more years. The term popped into my head while I was at a funeral a few weeks ago.  And it has continued coming to mind over the last several days.  I thought, Perhaps this is something that the Lord wants me to write about on my blog...The only problem was that I couldn't remember what it meant.  I decided that I should do some research on it since I felt sure that the Lord had been bringing it to my mind.

Skekinah Glory is the Hebrew term for God and His abiding presence!  It isn't found in scripture but is found in other outside Hebrew documents.  There is a derivative of it in the Old Testament though which translates "to dwell".    Just like God, Himself, dwelt in the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of clouds by day,  His glory dwells in His Son, Jesus Christ.  As it says in John 1:1 and 14, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" and "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (NIV)

"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,  and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.  He is the head over every power and authority."  Colossians 2:9-10 (NIV)

"At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. "  Luke 21:27 (NIV)

"I'm praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me.  The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us.   Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.  The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they'll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me.   Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me.  Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world.  Righteous Father, the world has never known you, but I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission.  I have made your very being known to them—Who you are and what you do—And continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them."  John 17:20-26 (The Message)

The funny question is, why am I thinking about it now?  Why did it keep popping into my head even when I didn't remember what it meant?  Do you think He wants us to remember that He is with us,  that He is present and always in control even when we don't see it or feel it?  And that most of all, He, Himself, dwells in His Son, and in us through His Holy Spirit? Amen!

Dear Lord,  Thank you for Your abiding presence.  Help us to remember that you are always with us even when we don't see you or feel you. Thank you that You dwell among us and that we have beheld Your glory, glory as of the only begotten.

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