Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: Galatians 5:13-14

“…Serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

Throughout Galatians 5, Paul has been presenting the Gospel as a message of freedom. He has been focussing on our freedom from bondage to the Law of Moses.

But now, in these verses, his attention seems to shift to the supernatural freedom Christ gives us from our human slavery to selfishness. By His saving grace and through the agency of the indwelling Holy Spirit, Jesus is at work in us to transform our hearts. He is at work to change our inherent selfishness into love for others – our inherent pursuit of our own well-being into a desire to pursue the well-being of others. As Philippians 2:13 says, “God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” (NLT)

To his Jewish Christian readers whose lives had been dominated by the burden of obeying every tiny detail of the Law, Paul wrote this gloriously liberating truth: “The entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Every Christian (whether Jew or Gentile) who desires to live our daily lives in ways that please God, now no longer has to remember hundreds of commands, but can simply choose to direct our lives to serve others humbly in love. For this task, the Holy Spirit will empower us!

A life of humble, loving service to others is a God-pleasing life.

Lord, empower me to bring You pleasure today, through a life of service to others. Amen.