10-23-23-ENG.

"Do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. "

Galatians 5:13 
FREE TO SERVE

Read It: Romans 6:17-18; Galatians 5:13 Jesus Christ looked down through history and saw you trapped in sin and death and paid the price to set you free-free to become His slave, the greatest freedom of all. You've heard it said that we are saved to serve. Well, that also applies to the freedom we have in the Holy Spirit. I remember as I was growing up, our family could not go to movies. When my father got saved, one of the things he cut out was movies. We couldn't go no matter how harmless less the movie. Now that bothered me because they came out with a movie called Zorro that I wanted to see because my boy had that black hat on with the cape and stuff. He was cool. So I snuck out to see Zorro. But I did sit in the back of the theater so that if it caught on fire, I would be able to get out. Today I feel the freedom to go to a legitimate movie. My father is still not free to go to movies. I can't impose my freedom on him. I can't say because I'm free in an area that something is wrong with you if you aren't. See, if God has not set my father free to attend a movie, but he goes because I put pressure on him, Paul says I am misusing my freedom to cause another brother to sin. We cannot sit in judgment on other people's convictions. Some of us look at the things other people do or say or the way they dress and assume they must think they are really something. But you and I are not God, so we don't know who thinks what.

We usually get into trouble when we start sitting in judgment on matters of conviction or opinion. Now that does not mean we suspend all judgment. God's guidelines lines are clear, so we're not talking about being open and accepting of everything. Some clothes are immodest. Some movies are unfit because they are designed to produce lust. We can speak to matters like these. But we are not to wield our freedom like a club to knock other people into line with our thinking. That's not using our freedom to serve each other. Think About It We are free to serve, not to flaunt our freedom and stifle someone else's spiritual growth.