Flower power. Join a commune. No rules. Everyone gets what they want with no responsibility.
It was the motto of the sixties. We were tired of responsibilities. The excess of rules had us constricted into anxious knots, and we wanted them undone.
Then unwanted pregnancies escalated, we faced the trauma of AIDS, and we discovered that communes are only easy when a few people work very hard. We tried to turn flower power into solar power. It didn’t transition well. Even our giant wind turbines, those massive, spinning flowers in the sky, couldn’t turn the truth around.
We don’t get something for nothing. A happy life requires our time, energy, and finances. The more freedom we have, the more careful we must be to exercise our privileges wisely.
Galatians 5:13-15 warns us that our freedoms in Christ are chuckholes we can easily stumble into.
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”
The key to making our Christian walk work is found in the fulfilled law: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
That means if a double-dip cone is good enough for us, our neighbor deserves one, too. If we enjoy quiet time after 11:00 PM, we should respect our neighbors and shut the stereo down. Then there are kind words, offers to help with lawn care, and a willingness to take the kids to school.
Our freedom in Christ is not about us. It’s about all of us, together, humanity, the world getting along because that’s the fulfillment of the law.
Christ set us free to LOVE ONE ANOTHER. That’s something we dare not forget.
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Code: FGO.H.23.17b.vp.esv