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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion January 13, 2009 Make It About Love |
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Frontline Devotion for Tuesday, January 13, 2009 by Matt Pensinger
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Paul's talking about freedom from the practices of particular religious observance; he's basically saying that the life found in Christ is available in any make, any model, any nation, any background... you don't have to be or to practice like one of the "chosen people," because you're ALL potential chosen people. In other words, don't make the way of Christ about things that it's not; a moment later he says, "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working* through love."
There are a lot of things that we "make it about." We make it about money, or safety, or preference, or pride. We make it about who gets there first, or who gets to sit up front, or whose cuisine reigns supreme. We make it about being smart, or being on the inside, or being the most. We make it about entertainment, or distraction, or what's next. We make it, honestly, about us. How could we not?
What Paul knows, what we know too, is that it's a short slippery step from "making it about" something to being entrapped, enslaved, dispirited into chasing after things we can't catch, worshipping things we don't believe in, being things that are less than what we're really about. We pile all of the things we want to do and need to do and are "supposed" to do on top of ourselves until we can't tell which is what anymore. We get locked into worldviews and mentalities that elaborately justify our own excess, our own priorities, our own self-interests. We get trapped by fear into throwing out our system of justice. We get enslaved by a vengeful terror that compels us to join in an unending cycle of violence until we're dropping bombs on children. We make life about things that it's not about, that it should never be about... we submit, yet again, to a yoke of slavery.
Paul ends his discourse on the new freedom in Christ by saying, "you were called to freedom... but through love become slaves to one another." You have the freedom to make it about whatever you wish. So... make it about love. Make it about hope spoken out of love. Make it about faith working through love. Become as slaves through love, exist in fervent love that has those senses of being bound to another and obligated to another and working for another. Make it about that... about not what justifies or protects or enriches me, but about what I can do that loves you well, and you that loves me, and we for each other, and each other for the whole world. Make us about love today, Lord God. Make us about good news.
Make us about your kingdom breaking into the world. Make us about each other. Make us about them. Make us about You. Amen.
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