Tight Line

Comprehend your liberty better everyday,
As you exercise your freedom to obey.
Seek to please man, and you will stray,
Live “too free” - and you will pay.
Back and forth the line does sway.
Keep your balance - go all the way.

Living free is like walking a tight line. On one side is your relationship with God and on the other is your relationship with people. If you get slack on either side then you will fall. It’s challenging because God set you free and you are not to be “be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” or to “use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh.” The more time you spend with God the more you comprehend your liberty and the more you attain the ability to offend those who are not free. You want to live in love, but you don’t want to be controlled by other people’s expectations and especially when they expect you to get in their cage so your freedom won’t offend them. Freedom can be very offensive to those who are bound, but they don’t where freedom’s found. So then should you live in bondage only in order not offend? What about the liberty that God called you to, and honoring the price He paid on the cross by living in it? It seems like there’s always someone who wants you to live by their standards and put their shackles on you, but you’re called to live by God’s standards and not mans. Many people simply wear the shackles for the fear of man and rejection. After all it’s easier to be in bondage than it is to be free. But God has called you to liberty. But if you live “too free” and “use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh.” then you will fall off the other side. Legalism tempts on one side and the flesh on the other. The flesh side says, “I’ll do what I want when I want, it doesn’t matter who it affects because after all, I’M FREE and if people don’t like it then that’s their problem.” And the fear side says, “I better toe mans line or they will reproach and reject me.” The problem is that both fear and flesh are false, they can’t hold up under pressure, if you try to walk their lines they will fail and you will fall.

The only line that never fails is love. But again you find yourself stuck between God and man. Love the Lord with all your heart and love people as yourself. So how do you find the balance? You must put first things first, and if you don’t do the first then you won’t be able to do the second. It’s imperative that you spend enough time with God and aware of Him that you become saturated with His love. The only way to love Him with all your heart is to receive the love He lavishes on you and then lavish it back. If you drink of His love daily then it won’t be long until it overflows. Then when you obey out of love you will truly begin to live in liberty. You’re free to do whatever He leads you to do, not just whatever you want to do. Your freedom is not restrained but tempered by love. Then you can bend in order not to offend without breaking your fellowship with God. Then you’re controlled by love and not by compulsion. You’ll never be able to please everyone, but you can always please God. So you must follow the line of love and let the chips fall where they may with people. Seek not to disobey God first and then not to offend people second. But be advised, surely someone somewhere won’t like it, but don’t use their reproach as an opportunity for your flesh and begin to flout your flout your freedom to offend.

The best you can do is to seek to please God and love man. Follow your heart. Do what the love of the Lord is leading you to do. Live by love and you will walk the line, defy the gravity of guilt by divine design.

Comprehend your liberty better everyday,
As you exercise your freedom to obey.
Seek to please man, and you will stray,
Live “too free” - and you will pay.
Back and forth the line does sway.
Keep your balance - go all the way.

Gal 5:1-2
5 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
NKJV

Gal 5:13-14
13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
NKJV

Prov 29:25
25 The fear of man brings a snare,
But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
NKJV

Rom 14:1-15:6
14 Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. 2 For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. 3 Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. 4 Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. 10 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. 11 For it is written:

"As I live, says the Lord,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God."

12 So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. 13 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way.

14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. 15 Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; 17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.

19 Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. 21 It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. 22 Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. 23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.

1 We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. 3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me." 4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. 5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
NKJV

1 Cor 13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
NKJV