Bondage and Liberty

Bondage and Liberty

If it is bondage to serve God in His Spirit, then it must be liberty to follow the lusts of the flesh. Perhaps you, like so many other people today, do not want to give in to these lusts, because you want to maintain a form of godliness, but you deny its power. If this is true of you, you ought to find a place in some religious assembly—either liberal or conservative—where people are not particularly concerned with their true spiritual condition as long as the outward form is in order.

For our part, we have renounced the hidden ways of shame. We refuse to handle the Word of God deceitfully for our own gain. Everyone is free to pretend and to do whatever he likes; but know that judgment will come afterwards. For us, liberty is to do the will of God, even if it means bondage and death for the flesh. The obedience of faith leads us into and through all hindrances. We overcome them by the power of God. Yet if obedience to the faith is bondage, then unbelief and disobedience must be freedom. However, the church of God has no use for this freedom. Death reigns wherever it is practiced.

We must be extremely vigilant because we live in a time that is permeated by a form of godliness that is powerless.

There is a form of self-denial that only serves to indulge the flesh. Yet those who are in the flesh cannot please God. People can say, “I have given up everything that is unnecessary.” All right then, give it up; but at the same time, don’t forget that something you consider unnecessary, another person might consider necessary, so he will hold onto it. Therefore do not measure another person according to what you have given up. And those who have not given it up must not boast in the fact that they have more liberty than the one who gave it up. It doesn’t matter at all to God what a person gives up or holds onto according to their human understanding, unless He has made His will known in the matter. Nevertheless, it is good to clothe oneself modestly and use the things of this world in moderation, so that opposers will not have anything evil to say when they see our good behavior.