FREEDOM

  … Use your freedom to serve one another humbly in love. Galatians 5:13 

How was your 4th of July celebration of our freedom in the United States of America?! I spent mine a little differently this year by watching a PBS documentary about the history of our celebration in the U.S. It went through the sacrifices that lead to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the history of our country including the ensuing Civil War, and also the lack of freedom currently experienced in other countries as people continue striving to achieve the freedom we have here.  

America is the land of the free and the brave. It is a beautiful and valuable thing, this freedom, and not to be taken for granted but to be used for the good of all. As Christians, we think about our freedom in a particular way. St. Paul directs us to God’s law of love for all that is the measure of our actions. Martin Luther argued in “The Freedom of a Christian” that in faith we are “perfectly free from sin and worry about salvation, but also servants of all with a duty to serve in love.” So, we are free, but paradoxically we are ruled by Christ’s great commandment to do all we do in love. 

Jesus promises that the Son sets us free. We are free indeed, as Paul tells us in Galatians, to use our freedom to serve one another humbly in love. Let’s use our freedom together to Share, Love, and Serve in a hurting world.  

Free in Christ,  Pastor Andrea