Whiteboard: Freedom Sunday

{Click on the picture for a larger version of the image}

This coming Sunday we will prepare our hearts for the 4th of July in our time of worship (I know it is still June this Sunday, but it is the Sunday before July 4th!).

And what better scripture passage could we have than Galatians 5!

Galatians 5 begins, "For freedom Christ has set us free."

On the 4th of July we celebrate the dreams, aspirations, and very best of our country and on the Sunday right before the July 4 we celebrate Freedom Sunday by lifting up the very best of who we are as believers who have been set free by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Even though that first line from Galatians 5 inspires our worship service this week, for the Whiteboard I was particularly inspired by one of the last line of our sermon scripture. That line reads, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

I don't know about you, but I certainly know that I am in need of those gifts of the spirit. Thus the picture this week!

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Galatians 5:1, 13-25 -- Freedom in Christ

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.