{"id":10088,"date":"2022-03-15T05:37:06","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T10:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-galations-5\/"},"modified":"2022-02-24T10:53:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:53:13","slug":"devotional-on-galations-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-galations-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Galations"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16128\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16128\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16128\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209615.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16128\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Along Oregon Hwy 101 &#8211; north of Florence &#8211; sea lions sunning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Freedom harnessed <\/p>\n<p>Galatians 5: Love others as you love yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Freedom isn\u2019t free.  For one thing, it\u2019s expensive to obtain.  That\u2019s true on national levels.  Wars are fought and lives are lost for the cause of freedom.  It\u2019s also true on the spiritual level.  Jesus goes to the cross, giving his all to set us free from the dominion of sin.  Freedom is also difficult to retain.  Again, on national levels, once freedom is gained it\u2019s often under attack from without and within.  Vigilance is necessary if freedom is to be retained.  Otherwise, it will gradually erode and be ultimately lost.  Paul warns his readers that spiritual freedom must be guarded and allowed to mature.  In his case, some are urging the Christians at Galatia to exchange some of their freedom in Christ for Jewish rules and regulations.  He tells them that if they do that they&#8217;ll be \u201ccut off from Christ\u201d and \u201cfall out of grace.\u201d  He also explains that freedom will actually destroy itself unless it\u2019s harnessed.  Otherwise, freedom becomes destructive and, in the name of freedom, people tend to \u201cbite and ravage each other\u2026annihilating each other.\u201d  If freedom is to survive it must be harnessed, placed under some controlling principle and authority.  The Apostle doesn\u2019t leave us to figure this out for ourselves, but plainly states that authority: \u201clove others as you love yourself.\u201d  Spiritual freedom, then, might be thought of as rather fragile.  On one side, it can be choked off by rules and regulations that seem to draw us like moths to a flame.  On the other side, it can, itself, become a negative, destructive force that causes pain and ultimately consumes itself.  The only hope is for our freedom to be placed under submission to love. It\u2019s no wonder that Jesus, who paid the ultimate price to obtain our freedom insisted that his followers love one another.  Otherwise, what he obtained for us is ultimately lost by us.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: Even freedom as great as it is must be made a servant to love.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freedom harnessed Galatians 5: Love others as you love yourself. Freedom isn\u2019t free. For one thing, it\u2019s expensive to obtain. That\u2019s true on national levels. Wars are fought and lives are lost for the cause of freedom. It\u2019s also true on the spiritual level. Jesus goes to the cross, giving his all to set us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1496,1428],"tags":[1323,374,518,1325,691,1324],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10088"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16130,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088\/revisions\/16130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}