Do you get along with your church family?

“My brothers, you were chosen to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; doing anything you want, but use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love. All that the Law says can be summed up in the command to "Love your neighbor as yourself". But if you keep attacking each other, be careful that you are not consumed or destroyed by each other. Galatians 5:13-15

The way of our flesh, our natural man, is to use freedom to indulge the flesh, but our love of God He gives us (1John 4:19) will result instead in loving obedience and service to others. If we walk in the flesh we may say we love, but then turn around and attack those who we claim to be “related” to; our brothers and sisters in Christ. Instead of loving Christians and working to restore them to walking by the Spirit, we claim “our rights” or express our “self-righteousness”.

We try to demand their obedience to our conditions rather than give them unconditional love and gently encourage them to repentance. You don’t have to like everyone or what some people do; like you and I, they are sinners and not perfect, but you do have to love them. The only way to really do that is to have God’s love flowing out of you. As John says, “If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” 1 John 4:20
Are you showing the same grace to others that God gave to you? We say we love the lost, but then we ignore or walk to the other side of the room to avoid those “different” than us. Bitterness, unforgiveness are ways we show rebellion against holy God, not service and love. Learn to love God, to appreciate your forgiveness because you realize you do not deserve it any more than anyone else; like Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

Deny your own wants, keep your flesh daily put to death on that cross and do what He shows you to do. Jesus came to save lost people and He gives you opportunities to disciple them. As a Christ follower you are free to love Jesus and let Him love others through you. Use your freedom, your free will choice, to love and obey the one who saved you by His grace in order to use you as His tool to accomplish His works. (Eph. 2:8-10)

Live in freedom where you get to do what the new you, the new creation, wants to do because your wants have become lined up with God’s wants. Free is the only way to live and experience the joy and the victory that is yours in Christ Jesus! Walk by grace, receiving it and also showing it to others and you can learn to walk in freedom. Your freedom to love, forgive and show grace come from who you are in Christ. It is not your own efforts or the things you do, but the Spirit that lives in you that produces this selfless love for God, your church family and others.