It’s tempting to reduce my faith to being a rule follower, especially if I’m concerned about what people think about me, or if I try to measure up to others’ expectations. My growing up years were flooded with rules and expectations, along with a fear of embarrassing my family or community I remember having nightmarish dreams of being caught doing a criminal activity or even being sentenced. Perhaps all of that has led me to a deeper faith in Christ’s atonement that I’m free of those types of anxieties. I still experience the ghosts of those expectations but I now fully recognize what Christ did on the cross resulting in no condemnation.
Questions to consider:
How have you experienced legalistic rules guiding your faith in Christ?
How have you experienced the freedom of the Holy Spirit guiding your faith?
How is your preparation for Easter reminding you of your freedom in Christ?
Today’s reference:
Galatians 5:1-3 (MSG)
“Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.”
“Let’s begin with the big-picture in view: we are designed by God to live by faith in Christ, and that faith generates in us a love for God, self, and others. When we have that faith-love dynamic, we are set free. To have faith means to be open to turn ourselves toward God, to gaze upon the face of Christ, and to surrender to God’s gift of the Spirit.”- Excerpt, Open to the Spirit, by Scot McKnight
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