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Sometimes the sins we commit are not moral ones but spiritual. We cultivate a legal attitude toward God, and that’s wrong. Christians start out in the Spirit, but when it comes to daily living, we try to perfect ourselves by the flesh.
The Law says, do these things and you shall live, but the Gospel says, live and these things you will do. The Law commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind; the Gospel says that this is love: Not that we have sought God, but that he loved us and sent his son to atone for our sins.
The Law demands holiness, but the Gospel gives holiness. The Law makes blessings the result of obedience, but the Gospel makes obedience the result of blessings. Under the Law, the old man was restrained, but with the Gospel, the new man is given liberty.
If we are right in our inward being, we shall certainly do right in our outward actions. This is what Christian liberty is all about.
Picture a woman who is a servant in a house and under the law of her master whom she tried to please. She’s paid a wage. She does her duty. But then, the master offers her his love and lifts her up from her place of service to be his bride and share his wealth. She may continue to do the same things, but now she does them with a different motive–love not duty!
Lord, my old sense of duty is now lost in my new sense of love. |
