13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Galations 5: 13-15
Paul is writing here about freedom and how we use it. We do not often think about freedom as a tool or a weapon. But, it is so powerful. Freedom is a gift, yes, but also necessary vessel of love. When we were created we could not love God without the freedom to choose that love. If the "entire law" is fulfilled by loving others than what greater place to invite the Lord than into these interactions and complexities. Interacting with others, further, loving others has never been easy. It required much attention and purposed thought, prayer, and grace. These relationships also require a watchful eye on our own hearts, our desires, and motivations for interactions with others. I want to take a moment to discuss motives behind interacting with others. This is a particular issue when interacting with the opposite sex, but not exclusively problematic to opposite sex friendships.
Because we are made in the image of the Creator. We have a desire to partake of worship. When we don't worship God, we still crave this interaction. The desire can then manifest itself to us engaging in the pursuit of or actuality of worshiping ourselves. Rather than participate as the Worshiper we engage as the worshipped, and we do this through broken relationships and emotionally abusive interactions. We seek a desire for ourselves from those who we don't feel a reciprocated desire for. We lead others to ourselves and entice them. We make them feel special, then assert that we are not interested in a certain level of interaction. The person has been seduced to believing that they have been experiencing intimacy, when really they were experiences the promise of intimacy, and of course it's a false promise that goes unfulfilled.
This desire to be worshiped is a part of our flesh, and it's only when we surrender our hearts and worship the only true being worthy of worship that the desire and passion for this interaction can be fulfilled. In order that we can fulfill the gospel of Jesus, we must not pursue self worship and therefore take a step back from interacting with those who might fall into acts of worship with us. This boundary is the only real way we can love these people in our lives. In order that we can love our neighbor, our brother, our friend, and our enemy we must die to these temptations and seductions to gain attention or false self worth, and pursue the Lord to determine our worth, beauty, and engage us in intimate worship.
