Session 3

We are set free to serve others

From Chasing Purpose: A 27-Day Devotional

Imagine you had nothing to eat for weeks. Your hunger would be so overwhelming that it would consume all of your thoughts. If you saw the food your belly ached for, what are the chances you would share it with an equally famished person?

Paul is thinking along those lines when he warns us not to “bite and devour” one another (Galatians 5:15). When we are empty spiritually, we see people and things as means, or obstacles, to filling our emptiness.

Jesus sets us free from our sinful nature, so we don’t have to be driven by our emptiness. Jesus sets us free, so we can have a relationship with God. The freedom Jesus died to give us isn’t the freedom to do whatever we want. It’s the freedom to know the One who created us and experience His love.

As we get to know our heavenly Father, His love fills us up. And it’s from that place of being fully loved that we realize we’ve been set free to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13).

Loving your neighbor as yourself is wanting something for them as much as you want it for yourself. We can’t muster up that kind of selflessness. We find it when we realize we’re fully loved, fully known, and fully provided for by our heavenly Father.

Serving other people is about more than doing the right thing or obeying Scripture. Those are both good motivations, but the most fun and free we’ll ever be is when we’re serving others out of the overflow of God’s love for us.

Reflect:

• How are you using the freedom Jesus gives you?
  
• What’s one way to know if you’re trying to satisfy your sinful nature?
  
• When’s the last time you thought about why you do the things you do? Consider making a list of your responsibilities and activities. Then, ask God to speak to you about each. Is there anything you need to start doing or stop doing?