What does a Christian look like? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a follower of God? Do we look to a pastor or the church for these answers? With churches running the gamut from ultra-liberal, where anything goes, to extremely conservative, where the members live simple lives and everything else is immoral. What does the Bible say, how are we supposed to live, are we allowed to watch R-rated movies and consume alcohol, can I get a tattoo or can women wear makeup and so on? How do we know the manner in which we are to live our lives, what I mean by this is who do we listen to when it comes to living our lives?
don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another. So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another. Galatians 5:13b-26
Paul starts out, Christian, “Don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.” Don’t use your freedom or don’t abuse the grace and mercy that God has shown to you. What we deserve is the hottest part of hell, what we deserve is God’s wrath and punishment for our sins, but the Bible says that if we put our faith and trust in Jesus as our savior God forgives us all of our sins. God gives us mercy when we deserve judgment, God gives us freedom instead of slavery and Paul says don’t use your newfound freedom as a license to do whatever you want. Instead, use your freedom to love one another. Love, Jesus said you will know my followers by their love for one another so first and foremost a Christian should be known by their love for other people.
Paul goes on to say that if you are being led by the Spirit of God then you won’t be satisfying your sinful desires. There is a war going on inside of each and every one of us, our good intentions are at war with our sinful desires. In Romans 7 Paul says, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like Paul gets you when he says I want to do what is right but I can’t, I don’t want to do what is wrong but I do it anyway? That is the war inside each and every one of us, we know not to follow our sinful nature but we find ourselves doing so anyway. So what do we do?
How do we do what is right instead of always doing what is wrong? The key is to be living by the Spirit of God, allowing him to work in your life. Where the result of following our sinful nature is: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. The result of following the leading of God’s Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So which attributes characterize your life? Is your life marked by quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, and selfish ambition or is your life marked by love? One comes from following our sinful nature and the other comes from being led by God’s Spirit. So as Christians, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
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