Without the power of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives, we are constantly doing the things we know we shouldn’t do and living in a perpetual cycle of screw up and beat up. The power of our flesh is strong. We want what we want, and the flesh won’t stop nagging at you until you give it what it wants. This is how we become slaves to our own ways. We’re not free to make better decisions, our old ways drag us back to old prisons where we’re chained doing the things we said we never wanted to do again. But here we are, doing them. Stuck. Miserable. Ashamed. But Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, “Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you STAY FREE and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” I used to think that being a Christian meant I had to follow more rules and give up more freedoms. I thought it meant I couldn’t have fun and I would be continually measured and judged. But my friends, it’s quite the opposite. Following Christ sets us FREE. We are free from the bondage of sin. We don’t have to stay stuck doing what we used to do. We are also free from slavery to the law. This law Paul is referring to is the 613 commands in the Old Covenant. Under the old law, you break one, you’re too far gone. There was no amount of obedience that could make up for one single disobedience. So the law held us captive in fear of messing up, never being good enough, always missing the mark. And that’s precisely why God sent his son Jesus. Only the perfection of Jesus could make this right. Only Jesus could set us free forever. The law was not abolished, but the law was completed through Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, ““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He paid the price of perfection we could never pay. So, how does that help us in our battle with the flesh that constantly craves what is wrong? Ahhhh, this is the key! Jesus’ sacrifice not only set us free from the law, but also gives us a gift to change us from the inside out. If you are chained to the law, you will continually feel not good enough. You will see yourself as a failure. You will feel hopeless to ever do better. In fact, you know what someone does when they know they’ve already screwed up, they just go ahead and screw up some more. That’s the way our flesh works. Hey, I already screwed up and ate brownies for breakfast, why not have some cookies too? Hey, I lost my sobriety streak this weekend, so why not go ahead and have a little drink on a Tuesday too? Hey, I already had an affair, so what will chatting with this other little cutie really hurt? Hey, I’ve already blown up my budget, so I might as well see what’s on Amazon today. This is how we dig the hole deeper. We make things worse because we’re already not good enough and without hope of ever making ourselves good enough for the perfection of the law. So God said, enough … I don’t want my girls struggling like this! My son Jesus will set them free from that trap of unworthiness. He will pay the price for their freedom. They will know they are already forgiven and free to come back to the fullness of life I have for them, even when they haven’t been perfect. Now, the gift that changes us from the inside out … God’s Holy Spirit! Galatians 5:15, “Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature...