You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
13 For [gar], brethren [adelphos], ye [humeis] have been
called [kaleo] unto [epi] liberty [eleutheria]; only [monon] use not [me] liberty [eleutheria] for [eis] an occasion [aphorme] to the flesh [sarx], but [alla] by [dia] love [agape] serve [douleuo] one another
[allelon]. KJV-Interlinear
13 For you
were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an
opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. NASB
Why were you called by God? Was it to enter into some program or effort whereby you have to earn or prove your worthiness? Was it to do what He has done in order to validate your being chosen? Was it to give you an excuse to go out and do whatever you want in the name of God?
If you think the answer to any of these is yes, then you have a lot to learn.
God called you, through the gospel, so that you can be brought to liberty. But what is liberty?
Liberty, ‘eleutheria,’ means freedom, unrestrained, unrestricted, exempt from liability, free.
Throughout this book, we have already seen that the Mosaic Law condemned mankind, placing humanity in the chains of restraint and slavery, whereby someone else, the world, made decisions for you and you have no rights or choices in life or even in the next life.
Liberty is the removal of that restraint, giving you unlimited freedom to make your own decisions, to go your own way, but of course within the boundaries of freedom.
Why then would you want to go back to the boundaries of restraint? God did not give salvation so that you could go back to slavery and try again to earn salvation on your own, but that is exactly what most of the world tries to do. And most people do not realize that they are placing themselves in a trap of their own making.
Who do you serve in life?
You serve that which you commit your life to, and unfortunately most folks commit their life to human works of one type or another. When you should be serving the content of the scriptures, meaning the principles and mandates that are taught, which means faith. But what does that mean?
The word for love, ‘agape,’ is one of several words for personal relationships that can exist between people and so forth. But ‘agape’ refers not to the emotional attachments, but to the principles behind the relationships. And those principles cannot be known unless you learn them. And you cannot learn them unless you are engaged in a learning process whereby you are being taught them.
Human effort or works, as we have been calling it, is any and all effort on your part that excludes Gods spiritual growth and function process.
Trying to do good deeds, trying to be obedient to cultural rituals or expectations that require that sort of obedience in order to gain salvation, complying with religious mandates in order to qualify for religious perks or promises, setting standards and trying to live by them in order to elevate yourself to some higher level of humanity and then of course looking down on others that do not or cannot match your standards, living life for appearances or pretense, and many, many more things, are all works and are all rejected by God. Even presuming that you know enough and therefore excuse yourself from Gods mandate to be taught, is a violation of truth and a part of works.
These are all energies of the flesh, or your doing something in order to gain salvation, or adding to salvation, and they are all false ideas or lies which are traps that keep you out of the spiritual process and out of the freedom process which God has designed for you.
And salvation comes to you in order to make you free from these chains.
Common sense teaches that anything a person can do, cannot possibly be done by everyone without exception. Therefore doing a thing, becomes disqualified as a prerequisite of salvation simply because everyone cannot do it. Women cannot be circumcised, so why would that be a requirement of salvation? Some people are handicapped and therefore cannot perform certain types of work, so working is disqualified. Some people cannot go door to door, cannot stand on a street corner all day long, cannot do a lot of things that others might be able to do, so these things are invalid salvation aids or add-ons. Most people do not belong to the same culture, so any and all cultural requirements are invalid salvation requirements.
Mans rules always exclude someone, and therefore are invalid rules. And those rules are more generally designed to keep people trapped inside some invented culture or religion or membership or class structure by threatening them with some bad thing, if they stray or leave.
There is only one thing that everyone can accomplish equally, and that is to believe, and even for those who do not have adequate brain function or are not old enough to make responsible decisions, if they were to die, are automatically saved. So God is fair to babies, young kids, and severely mentally impaired folks. So no one is excluded from salvation by Gods plan. No one.
And so Paul repeats his point. You were called to freedom through salvation by faith, for the purpose of being and remaining free and having the benefits of freedom, and not so that you would go back to a slaves environment and gain nothing of the benefits of freedom.
And of course the benefits of freedom are many. The primary benefit is so that you can study daily, grow up spiritually, and advance to spiritual maturity wherein places you in front of the Lord for phenomenal eternal rewards and blessings that are beyond your imagination. That means infinite benefit. Where else in this world can you get that? Nowhere.
