It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 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.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. - Galatians 5:1, 13-25
There is another way to live, not contrary to the law but beyond the law. Paul says, "For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” but then he says, "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." and then, after listing the fruit of the Spirit, he says "Against such things [the fruit] there is no law." The law was about restraining us from going against our neighbor. The Bible knows that we will tend to see other people as competitors, rivals, enemies or nobodies. As a result, the law had to come to reframe people, not as the rivals, but as someone as worthy of us of being loved. "Love your neighbor as yourself."
But then Paul goes beyond that: if we didn't live with other people as rivals--if we lived with other people as deserving love way that God loves us--then it opens up a whole new way of life. Whereas life now classifies people as superiors, rivals, equals or dependents, the Spirit's way of life is about a new sort of relationship that isn't evaluated but rather celebrated. This doesn't contradict the golden rule--love your neighbor as yourself--but rather delves deeply within it to find what relationships can become if we follow the Spirit. What could we create together if we weren't always comparing or competing--if we were a loving, joy filled, peaceful, kind, patient, faithful and in-control sort of people. I pray God we are not the last to get there, but we would be the first ones through the gate into the character of grace, not the character of mere survival.
