The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

 

What thoughts come to mind when you read these words?  You might think these are good things to avoid.  You might think that you would like to dabble in some of them a little every now and then.  You might think that life is about trying to steer away from the things on the list.  You might be mentally exhausted through trying to avoid these things.  You might think there is no point trying anymore.

These behaviours habitually happen with some of us because of the law.  No... let me rephrase that:  these things happen through living according to the law instead of living in the One who has fulfilled the law.  

Living according to the law breeds fear. 
Fear breeds lack. 
Lack breeds sexual immorality, hatred, selfish ambition, envy and the other things listed. 
Living according to the law enslaves us to these things.

‘Bad behaviour’ is not the root.  ‘Good behaviour’ is not the escape route.  Living by own resources is the root of slavery to these things.  Living in Christ is our root and escape route.  Good behaviour is the fruit of the Good Root in us (John 15:5). 

Putting our faith in Christ is the root.  When we put our faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in us and grows in us and the behaviour listed diminishes as a matter of course.

So if we see someone who does not appear to behave in these ways listed, it could be for two reasons.

1)      They have given up on trying in their own strength and received the power of the Holy Spirit, the result of which is that such behaviour becomes less and less.

2)      They understand that these behaviours are not right and fight in their own strength to be ‘good’.

One of these scenarios is under the slavery of the law.  We live under a new covenant.  The covenant of grace.

Whether we do these things or we don’t do these things; if we are walking in our own strength then we have not grasped the point. 

The point is, there is a part of us that is in allegiance with these behaviours. 

If we fight against this in our own strength, we are in the ‘law’ system.  If we indulge in them, we are in the law system. 

If we give up on our selves and receive the One who has defeated the source of all of these things and has fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17) we will live by the grace system.

The grace system is not walked out by trying to live in opposition to these things in our own resources; it is walked out by living as new creations in Christ, (2 Corinthians 5:17) the One Who has conquered all of these things.

The law system causes us to be in admiration of some people and in disgust of others depending on how their behaviour stacks up to this list of behaviours; in our eyes.  But the comparisons we make of people (2 Corinthians 10:12) do not stack up with God’s standard, no matter how ‘good’ someone may appear on our scale / measuring stick. 

God requires perfection (James 2:10).  We will never achieve perfection in our own efforts, but we can receive Perfection and walk out our lives in Perfection.  Christ. (Matthew 5:48)

Steve Harewood