These days our American culture seems to be all about freedom! So much so that at every sporting event someone leads us all in a hats-off, heart-felt “invocation” that the Star-Spangled Banner might e’er wave o’er this land of the free.
But I think we have become intoxicated with the notion of freedom. Freedom of speech, for example, has become such an inalienable right that we can say whatever however whenever to whomever, and if it upsets or hurts them, so be it. And if someone so much as tells us “No,” they have encroached upon our God-given freedom to do as we jolly well please.
It has infected the faithful as well.
But what does the Lord have to say about our freedom? “Do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal 5:13).
The word “opportunity” has a military flavor—it’s a base of operations or place from which an attack is launched. So the next time you hear yourself championing your freedom or taking a firm stand on some cherished liberty, ask the Holy Spirit for discernment: “Is this really only a smokescreen for self? Am I in fact just giving my flesh a base of operations from which to attack?”
And there’s more. Notice this twist: in an interesting juxtaposition, Paul says “freedom” should be an opportunity to “serve” one another. And he actually chose the slave word: “through love be a slave to one another.”
All this runs so counter to the way we Americans think of our freedoms, doesn’t it? Which of us would ever willingly choose to be a slave to another through love? I suppose only those of us whom Christ has freed from the clutches of sin. Only those of us who, in deep gratitude for His emancipation, have taken up the basin and towel. For as the Master, so shall the slave be.