Love Humbly

Those of us who make the choice to walk with god and believe that Jesus died to save us from our sin are not thereby free to sin. We still have a responsibility now that we have been reborn in him to strive to live like him. It is time to put away the old ways that admittedly did not serve us well and better ourselves. How do we accomplish this ? We get into the word and see what it has to say to us. I will begin by examining some guidelines that have been set forth for us by God

Gal 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

  Rom 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.  8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.  11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.  15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.  19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life inChrist Jesus our Lord.   First we see that with this gift we have been given of eternal life we have some added responsibilities that go along with that. In gal 5:13We are told not to indulge the flesh let us begin there. To understand this we must understand what our flesh is and simply put it is that old self ;that body that the spirit of Christ now dwells within, we must make this home suitable for him. So what are things that are in opposition to that? Again we can go to the word. Gal 5 19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

I will go into these more in later posts. These are the things that we need to put away when we do make that choice to walk with god.   In the second half of that verse we are told to serve one another humbly in love. By this we are asked again to put ourselves aside in a way. We are told to love thy neighbor as thyself also known as do unto others as you would have them do unto you. To understand this further let us examine the meaning of the word humble. By definition according to Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humble

Let us go further yet by looking into the word haughty also byWebster ishttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haughty?show=0&t=1315992745This is not to say that we should not value ourselves but that we are not to value ourselves above all else or other's; love thy neighbor as thyself thereby equally as much and in the same fashion with the same degree of forgiveness and understanding that we both give to ourselves and wish to be given to us. By lashing out at each other we are only hurting ourselves as we can plainly see here  Gal15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. You can see where the flesh plays into this as well with jealousy,fits of rage,selfish ambition,dissentions,factions and envy ;again I will go into these in future posts.