Call to Freedom
Pete was asked to deliver his Christian testimony to the Angels baseball team. He told them that he was raised as a good little Sunday School kid at a Baptist church in Alabama. Then when he went off to college, he started to do things that he couldn’t have imagined when he was a child. One guy on the team shouted, “things like what?” Pete read from Galatians 5:19-21. “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”
The context of these “works of the flesh” begins with Galations 5:13-15: “We’ve been called to freedom. Only use not freedom as an opportunity to the flesh (the sin nature) but in love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”
There is a point of no return in every relationship. A resentment bank accumulates into “irreconcilable differences.” These differences are the devil’s ploy to divide and conquer.
However, Love covers a multitude of sins. According to verses 16-17, “walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that you cannot do the things that you please.” Lust means “over desire.” Lust is anything that we love and desire over our love of God and our desire to please him.
We’re where we are today because of the decisions we’ve made. When we “come to ourselves,” this is the point of repentance…the point of turning from the law of sin and death and toward the law of the spirit of life in Christ.
The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The devil’s greatest deception is to convince people that he doesn’t exist. Immorality in verse 19 means harlotry, incest, and all types of sexual perversion. Impurity and debauchery is filthy wantonness, indecency and vulgarity. Sensuality gives in to the indulgences of the flesh and the appetites of the sinful nature. Sorcery and witchcraft refer to drugs and addictions that open our minds to the power of Satan himself… The power of spiritual wickedness in high places.
We are subject to the devil and his whims when left to our own devices. We cannot defeat the powers of the Prince of the Power of the Air in our own strength. We’re not strong enough, we’re not smart enough, and we’re not wise enough. However, when we confess that in our own power we’re nothing, this is the point of repentance…of turning to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Insurrection means to separate our hearts from the truth of the Word of God. It is fierce indignation against everything that is righteous and holy. Disputes, dissensions and factions are part of the factious nature of sin and death.
The works of the flesh continue with murder, carousing, and reveling. Reveling is to abandon all self-control…to giver ourselves over to the lusts of our sinful nature.
This is just a partial list of the works of the flesh, the nature of sin and death that we inherited when Adam fell.
The fruit of the spirt is in direct contrast to the works of the flesh. The fruit of the spirt is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Against such there is no law. There is only one place that these things are found: The word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Jesus said that those who are saved have received the Holy Spirt. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Love activates the other fruit of the spirit. Love fulfills the law and activates the spirit of God in Christ in us the hope of glory. Jesus said, a new commandment I give you…that ye love one another as I have loved you. Love covers a multitude of sins.
Pete has conducted marriage counseling sessions where the husband listed three pages of things that were wrong with his wife. However the love of God thinks no evil… It keeps no record of wrongs done. May our prayer be, “Lord, search me and create within me a new heart. Show me that there’s nothing wrong with my wife that you can’t fix in me. Teach me to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.”
Joy and rejoicing is not the absence of pain. Rather, joy is the presence of the Lord. According to Psalm 37:4, Delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” The command is to actively, deliberately, and intentionally direct our delight according to the Lord’s delight. When we make his word our word, when we align our hearts with his heart, when our delight is his delight, then he will give us the desires of our heart. Reconciliation means to bring back together that which has been separated. This is the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
Patience is actively waiting upon the Lord. They that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength… They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint.
The gentleness of the Lord calls a man to repentance. It’s the goodness, grace, and mercy of God that wins the unsaved. It’s not because of who we are, but because of who He is. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The battle against the sin nature rages on. We cannot resist in our own power. In the words of Martin Luther’s great hymn of the faith:
Did we in our own strength confide, our battle would be losing.
Were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.
Doth ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is He.
And He must win the battle.
As Paul said, Thy strength is made perfect in my weakness. Thy grace is sufficient for me.
May we ever live to the praise of the glory of his grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael