Good evening and Happy Sabbath!

Good times

I hope everyone enjoyed the 4th of July holiday as much as we did.  With fireworks, racing, grilling out and the hot and sultry weather, it definitely felt like the 4th of July at our house!

There were definitely quite a few folks celebrating in our neighborhood.  An evening bike ride through the neighborhood provided all the firework you could want to celebrate the freedom we are blessed with in this nation!

Celebrating Freedom

Of course, from a religious standpoint, people like to enjoy 'freedom' as well.  Most often, they point to scriptures like Romans 14, and use it to mistakenly justify the freedom to eat anything they want.  The logic doesn't stop there of course. Many interpret Paul's writings to mean that they are free from keeping any sort of laws that don't make sense to them, and dub this as 'the law of liberty.'

Interestingly enough, Paul doesn't actually use that term.  Although he does refer to liberty and bondage at various points, it is only in the book of James we see the phrase 'law of liberty.'  James 1:22-25 (NKJV) says, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

This of course sounds a bit different than what those who proclaim 'Paul's law of liberty.'  James says we need to do what the word says. And that when we fail do do so, we forget what we once were.  Think about this in an extreme sense. What if someone got angry because someone cut them off in traffic, and as a result, murdered the other driver?  The police show up and say, "Okay, that was bad, don't do it again." How likely do you think they would be not to commit murder again the next time they got angry?  Not very.

James points out that the law is like a mirror - something we use to examine ourselves with.  If there were no laws, how would we know what was right and wrong?

Real Freedom

James uses the phrase again in James 2:10-12, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.  For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.  So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty."  What is meant by the law of liberty? Simply put, keeping God's law keeps us free from sin and death.  It is not meant as freedom for us to pick and choose which laws we want to keep.

While it is true that the old covenant, and parts of it such as animal sacrifice are no longer in place, God's basic law - summarized primarily in the Ten Commandments - are indeed still valid.  They are to be used like a mirror, and will help guide us as we examine our thoughts and actions for what is right and wrong. When we do that, we have an opportunity to live in true liberty - freedom from sin!