Reading THE MESSAGE

I sat today for several hours reading.  Going through Galatians.....slowly, with broken boldness, to get my heart around the freedom that IS MINE IN CHRIST.  Wanting it more than a meal, or a cruise, or a precious jewel....

Reading these words in The Message version because the book was on the table next to the chair, and I am a visitor here free to take up interesting books on the coffee table.  I am also a visitor to this version of scripture....but after today, I would like to be at home here with this book.  Listen to the word of Galatians 5: 16 - 26.......
Paul says, "My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.  Then you won't feel the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.  These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don't you chose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap-sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;  frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid lonliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied-wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or to be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lop-sided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing every one into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community.  I could go on.

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know.  If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way?  He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an  orchard - things like affection for others,  exuberance about life, serenity.  We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart,  and a conviction that a basic  holiness permeates things and people.  We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,  not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.  Among those who belong to christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off  for good......crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.   that means we will not compare ourselves with each other  as if one of us were better and another worse.  We have far more interesting things to do with our lives.  Each of us is an original."