"For you [all] upon freedom have been called, brothers. Only not the freedom unto an opportunity for the flesh, but rather through the love, be serving one another."
-So, yes, we are free indeed. Free from the soul-sucking bondage of obligatory law-keeping, from vainly trying to garner God’s acceptance through works. Yes, we have been called to freedom. But, freedom. Freedom. I do not think that word means what we think it means. Here in the US, land of the free and home of the whopper, we think it means that I get to have it my way. The land of opportunity, right? The opportunity to super-size my combo meal and everything else, to super-size ME, to upgrade and update and indulge the threefold-self without limits, as long as I'm reasonably decent to most people, as long as you don't get in my way. The opportunity to be selfish is what it is. Me-first. To which Paul says, uh-uh. That may be the American way, but it is not the Christian way, not the way of the Cross. Freedom in Christ, that freedom which He purchased with so great a love, with His precious blood, is not a ticket to boundless narcissism. It was never meant to be a license to never say no to self. In fact, it is just the opposite. No, we have been set free to be like Jesus, the One Who so loved the world, Who came not to be served but to serve, to say yes to others, to give away His life, His rights, His wants, to spend His life and be spent - for others. Deny yourself, say no to self, He said. Not what I want, He said. He came to show love, and love gives. We were made for this, for love, to freely give and receive God's unconditional love in the ultimate expression of His breathtaking goodness. Greater love has no man than this, than he lays down his life for His brother. Just like Jesus, Who emptied Himself of self. Which is precisely the point. The way of self, it turns out, is just another form of bondage. As long as I am enslaved to the threefold-self, giving in to the flesh and indulging my wants at every turn, I am completely unable to become that divine image bearer I was designed and recreated in Christ to be. This is what we were always made for. True freedom is found in the wide open spaces of God's unconditional love, giving and serving with no strings attached, no expectation of payback or wondering what might be in it for me. God’s love does not live in that soul-sucking cul-de-sac called Me-Myself-And-I Circle, always circling around on what I want, that place where I am absorbed and lost in a black hole of selfishness. God's game-changing love comes in and goes back out, life-giving, living water, like the Sea of Galilee (as compared to that truly dead Dead Sea, which only takes in and never gives). God’s love blesses me to be a blessing. And it starts with loving and serving my fellow believers.
-One another. One another. Two English words, but a single word in the Greek, and it appears over and over and over again in the New Testament. Allélōn, sounds a little like ‘all alone’, but it is far from it in meaning. In fact, it is about the exact opposite, because we are talking about not a lonely individual but rather a family, the family of God actually, gathered together and burdened with glorious purpose, a purpose which finds it primary expression in how God’s children relate to - wait for it... one another. Jesus raised the flag first. He said, you - God’s people - you need to wash one another’s feet (John 13.14). You - God’s people, God's children - you should be loving one another, a ‘new’ command which He then repeated 5 times in a single setting (John 13.34-35, 15.12, 15.17). Yes, you need to love the Lord your God with all your heart - and right alongside that you need to love your neighbor, but this neighbor love which shows my God-love now begins with loving and serving those others who are walking with Christ beside me, fellow members of God's family. We are walking together and are helping one another - or should be. Paul himself picks it up here and throughout his letters to the churches in Christ - 70 times he uses this word, shedding light on the importance of how we as the sons and daughters of the King (brothers and sisters in Christ!) are to treat and relate to one another. Over and over and over again, he instructs God’s people - who are family - to actually live like one. And not like just your average fallen human version of a family. This family is (to be) divine, heavenly, heaven-sent. Love one another with God's unconditional love, serve one another like Jesus - or at least that’s the idea. God help us...
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