Richard Roberts – Second of five parts
The story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible has four great truths in it that I want to share with you. The first is this:
You are never free enough to escape community.
If I hurt you, I hurt myself. Why? Because as Christians, we are forever tied together. We are all part of one body―the Body of Christ―and we have a responsibility to lift one another up.
There’s really no such thing as absolute freedom. The planets don’t have it. They’re hemmed in by the hand of God to roam in certain orbits. The oceans don’t have absolute freedom. They’re hemmed in by the shorelines of the continents. And man doesn’t have absolute freedom. We are hemmed in by God and by one another.
Freedom is not the right to do as we please ― it’s the responsibility to do as we ought.
How free, then, is our freedom? Our freedom is a freedom to love one another ― a freedom to serve one another and to build up one another. We are not called to escape community or to be free from loving one another!
Are you trying to run away from someone or something today, thinking that you will then be free? Ask God to touch your heart so that you can learn how to love those around you. Only then will you truly experience freedom!
