Click here to watch my video reflection on our text for today, or keep reading for my written reflections: 

Today as one of our readings, we look at Galatians 5: 6, 13-15: 

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Today in our readings, I was especially drawn to this reading in Galatians, and let me tell you why.  You see the major theme of what is happening in verse 6, the only thing that counts is faith working itself out in love. And then you see that move deeper in verses 13-16, that love compels us to be a slave or servant, to one another.  This points us to, perhaps, the most important thing that we need to understand about the biblical concept of love.  

Love is not emotion.  We mistake biblical love for the emotional, owie gooey love of this world. All emotion and warm fuzzies.  That is not love in the biblical sense. The biblical sense of love is what Jesus did for us, even before the cross, when He prayed, Lord take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours.  Jesus chose the path of laying down His life for me and for you because He loved us. That is love.  Not emotion, but service. 

Today, we see that we are to the same for each other.  Our lives get thrown off because so often we live them out, not out of love, but out of lust.  I’m not talking about lust in the sense of sexual, but in terms of how we see each other.  Lust says that you are a tool to be used for my gratification.  We often think sexually, but anytime we see a person as something to be used for our benefit, not as a person for who Christ died, someone of great work, we are not seeing them as God designed. 

Our choice, especially as Christians, should be to be a servant to each other. As the old song goes, “brother, let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you.”  When I love you and serve you and your love me and serve me, guess what? We all have our needs met. 

That is the key in marriage. That is the key in all life. Faith working itself through love.  

Not through emotion. Through love.  That’s the choice of love. Today, may we each chose that.  

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